Doechii on being bullied and struggling with mental health: ‘I realised, what do I really think is important?’
Doechii admitted: "I was thinking about taking my own life because of what other people thought about me"
By Gary Grimes
Rapper du jour Doechii has spoken vulnerably in a new interview about her past struggles with her mental health, revealing she was experiencing suicidal thoughts at one point in her life.
The GRAMMY winner was candid in an interview for the new issue of Dazed, on which she graces the cover, explaining that her Doechii persona was in fact born in response to bullies who had made her question her very existence.
“That’s not the life I want to live”
“I was in a position where I thought about killing myself because the bullying was so bad,” Doechii admitted. “Then I had this realisation: I’m not gonna do that, because then they’re gonna all get a chance to live and I’m gonna be the one dead, and look at my taste! Nobody wants that. I don’t want that. That’s not the life I want to live.”
“It made me realise I had gotten down to a point where I was thinking about taking my own life because of what other people thought about me, and I realised, ‘OK, what do I really think is important? What do I want here?’,” she went on.
“I had that realisation pretty young, and that birthed Doechii.”
The rapper, who is bisexual, has previously talked about how her sexuality made her feel excluded in the community she grew up in. In ‘love letter’ to the LGBTQ+ community she penned for Billboard last year, Doechii wroter: “Growing up as part of the LGBTQ+ community in the South, acceptance wasn’t always readily available to me. As a bisexual woman living in Tampa, Florida during the early 2000s, I stood out from the perceived norm.
“I felt marginalized by my Southern community until I found my sanctuary online.”
The performer is currently riding a wave of success following her Best Rap Album win at the GRAMMY Awards earlier this year for her 2024 mixtape Alligator Bites Never Heal.
The song ‘Denial Is A River’, lifted from that mixtape, recently peaked at number 21 on the Billboard Hot 100, her highest charting song on the chart to date.
She most recently released a new single in collaboration with former Blackpink member Jennie entitled ‘ExtraL’. Speaking about working with the K-Pop star, Doechii gushed: “She’s a star. She’s really inspiring. I like how professional and involved she is. We’re both involved in that same way, and I respect and like that about her. It was great working with her. She’s talented.”