In an interview with Men’s Health, published today (Aug. 1), Method Man opened up about the “real issues” he was dealing with during the height of his career in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
“I was just being irresponsible, with many things coming back to bite me all at once,” the Wu-Tang Clan rapper began. “I wasn’t taking care of my finances in a proper fashion. The admiration wasn’t the same. I didn’t think it would bother me that much, but it did — people’s opinions. I was just angry. It went from this childhood joy, to this euphoric feeling of celebrity, to feeling inadequate and not good enough. That’s where the depression and stuff came in. I didn’t even know I had been depressed since I was a youngster before I started doing music and moved to Staten Island. A lot of PTSD I had never dealt with before started resurfacing, but I didn’t know what it was then. In hindsight, you delve deeper into your psyche and see where certain things come from.”
He continued, “I just wasn’t a happy person. It reached a point where misery was loving company, and the people around me were just as miserable. So, it kind of fits. Then I got tired of it and did not want to be around miserable people anymore. I just wanted to see light. I wanted everything light. Forget the darkness. What can I create for myself? It had nothing to do with finances. It had nothing to do with other people. It was just me. What can I control? That’s what I did; I took control after that. I stopped valuing other people’s opinions, and instead of being my biggest critic, I became my biggest fan.”
Elsewhere during the conversation, the Long Island native was asked about the process of being kinder to himself. “Self-love,” he responded. “It’s simple as that. Looking yourself in the mirror and honestly saying that you love yourself. But it’s one thing to say and then another to go and do it. Show that you love yourself. That’s all I’ve been doing. What people see now is just happiness.”
For this interview, Method Man graced the health magazine’s special edition cover alongside Busta Rhymes, 50 Cent, Ludacris, Common, and Wiz Khalifa in honor of hip hop’s 50th anniversary.