Sugababes are “so happy” that the mental health of pop stars is discussed more widely now.
The girl group – which includes Mutya Buena, Siobhán Donaghy and Keisha Buchanan – is grateful that conversations which would have been near impossible back when they first found fame are now making their way into the mainstream and artists can be honest about how they feel.
Discussing Jesy Nelson’s exit from Little Mix due to her mental health, Siobhán said: “It wouldn’t have been an option back then to say that, and I’m just so happy that mental health is so widely discussed now. I don’t know anybody who hasn’t suffered from some kind of mental health issue once in their lifetime and everyone needs support in the workplace. There’s this idea you’re living a hugely glamorous life the minute you have one song out, and you must be rolling in it, so you should suck up any nasty comments because you chose that life. That attitude is changing – and is seriously long overdue.”
And Keisha also opened up about how she felt racism contributed to the perception she was a bully.
She told NME: “I wanted to shine a light on fairness. It wasn’t about painting myself as a victim – who isn’t a cow when they’re younger? But a black kid making a mistake is not treated with the same punishment. What did a lot of damage to me mentally and the things I still have to deal with to this day is that perception led into the way I dealt with business and people as I got older, and I became a complete walkover. I never talked about my experiences of being surrounded in toilets by girls who just wanted to fight me. Or how – in other Sugababes’ line-ups, not this one – writing-splits were an issue and when I said: ‘But I wrote more on this song’, I’d be accused of being a bully. That was hard for me.”