On today’s “Tamron Hall,” multi-talented singer and actress Chlöe Bailey joined the TamFam to open up about mental health, the dark period she endured when she was 22 and how she was able to pull herself out of depression. The Grammy-nominated superstar also revealed why she deleted social media apps off of her phone, the controversy surrounding her role in Prime Video’s “Swarm” and her new role in the cinematic musical event, “Praise This.” See the video clip inside…
Chlöe Bailey on her battle with depression:
“You know, when you get stuck in that moment for too long, and it feels a little too long being there? It didn’t have anything to do with my career or my music. It was all personal, internal things. And I think when you figure things out that make you question your entire life, you look at yourself like ‘what did I do wrong? Am I good enough?’ things like that. And for me, I used music to pull me out of it, my god-mom and my family, Halle and Ski and Branson and Joe like all of them kind of helped lift me back up into better spirits and things like that and you know, feelings have, you have your ups and you have your downs, it’s never going to be a steady course. But at least I feel confident enough in knowing that this life was worth living for.” Chlöe added, “I want people to know because I don’t want there to be a young woman or a young fella out there feeling alone. Like there’s something wrong with them. It’s not and especially right now in this generation with social media, and everything all in your face and you’re comparing your worst self to everyone’s fake best self and you know with FOMO and things like that. If I could just help one person feel less alone and inspired to go talk to someone or lean on a family or friend member, then I know I’ve done my job because this is greater than myself. And ever since I was young, I’ve always prayed to God like ‘God, I want to do this. I also want to inspire and help people.’ So while I’m helping and healing myself, that’s why I created this album because it was therapy for me and now I can use it to hopefully help someone else.”
Chlöe Bailey on why she deleted social media apps from her phone:
“For a minute, I removed all socials off my phone and I just turned it over to my team. Of course I would still take the content, I would still come up with the captions but I would just send it to them. But I got rid of my social media because I realized the things people were saying, the negative things that people were saying about me, they were affecting me. And I noticed like if I go out on stage or even if I just make any appearance, thoughts in my head were like ‘Oh if I just do this, people are going to say this’ and I realized that I was changing myself for other people and their opinions and what they were accusing me of originally which is not being myself and being something forced, that’s what I was turning into because I was so occupied with what people thought about me but the second I deleted the apps off my phone, I was mentally so much clearer. You’re doing what makes you happy!”
Chlöe Bailey on the controversy behind her role in “Swarm”:
“You want to know the great thing about removing Twitter from your phone? Anything negative I did not see! In turn, I was just proud of the work I did as an actress. Let me tell you something that just boosted my confidence as an actress so much. A little earlier today, I saw the incredible Taraji P. Henson and the first thing she said was like ‘You were incredible in ‘Swarm’’ and she was like, ‘Keep going!’ And that just meant so much to me because playing Marissa in that show, it was all shot on film, which was so cool. Shout out to Janine Nabers and Donald Glover and Dominique Fishback.” Chlöe added, “Being on that set opened my love for acting so much more to be honest with you. Because that was really the first time I felt comfortable being raw and open. I barely had any makeup on for it. I was just myself. I had my short locks, everything like that. So I was like, ‘You know what, what can I take from Chloe, the soul of Chloe and the heart of Chloe and put into this character?’ and why I love Marissa and resonated with her is because on the outside, she’s this huge ball of sunshine. She’s so like positive and she in turn was dealing with her own personal issues so you really never know what people are going through and I felt honored to play her and to share her. I think people are so used to seeing me so done up and ‘Hi! Hey!’ It’s always different to see me in that light but that’s what acting is all about.”
