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Madison Beer Recalls Aftermath of Leaked Videos
Warning: This story discusses intersexual battle and suicide.
In her caller memoir The Half of It, Madison Beer admits close disconnected the bat that it isn't about everything she's been done in her 24 years of beingness to date.
But, she writes, it is about the worldly that a idiosyncratic mightiness ne'er conjecture was roiling beneath the aboveground by conscionable looking astatine the "Selfish" singer, who started off posting her performances of popular classics connected YouTube and ended up with a grounds woody astatine 13 not agelong aft Justin Bieber shared 1 of her videos connected Twitter.
And still, Beer notes successful her introduction, penning the book "opened immoderate unhealed wounds" and made her recognize however much she had been "sugarcoating" her experiences in an effort to marque everybody else—and herself—more comfortable.
She calls the effect "the astir openly honest" she's ever been and, done her bid of earthy revelations, Beer explains that she hopes the large takeaway volition beryllium that choosing kindness and empathy is usually the answer, due to the fact that you never know what different idiosyncratic is going through.
Here is what Beer shares astir her experiences:
Dealing With Online Hate
Beer writes of being mercilessly harassed online, fundamentally from the clip she started making a sanction for herself astatine 12. The "tipping point" arsenic she remembers it came erstwhile she was 16 and dating "a lad who was much fashionable than maine online."
The Long Island, N.Y., autochthonal "was called endless names—labeled a whore for having him arsenic my boyfriend, for dressing a definite way," she writes, "for the astir insignificant pieces of my personality."
Amanda Edwards/WireImage
Beer says she wishes it didn't impact her relationship, but it did—and she felt she was being encouraged to "lean into" being objectified, believing however she dressed and her enactment beingness (which was "nonexistent" astatine the time, she writes, noting that earlier this narration she'd lone kissed a fewer guys) were the astir absorbing things astir her.
The negativity besides made her anxious astir performing live, she shares, and she recalls wanting to cancel a time earlier she was expected to open for her boyfriend astatine 1 of his shows. But, she writes, her ma talked her down from the self-loathing ledge, reminding her that the radical who booked her for her endowment were the ones to trust, not the trolls online.
Ultimately, she writes, erstwhile she went onstage "all the nightmare scenarios I'd spent hours playing retired didn't happen."
Beer says that to this time she's inactive wounded connected a regular ground by nasty worldly she reads online, an it-comes-with-the-territory downside of fame that she feels nary 1 should person to get utilized to.
The Lasting Trauma of Sexual Assault
Beer writes that she was sexually assaulted arsenic a kid and then again erstwhile she was 14 astatine the first-ever enactment she attended successful Los Angeles.
She predicts that the trauma volition beryllium with her forever, but she writes that she told "nobody" astir what had happened to her, including her aforementioned boyfriend, who she calls the "first idiosyncratic to ever interaction maine consensually."
Beer writes that, though she inactive "can't marque consciousness of" being assaulted astatine that party, she is not ashamed and it made her an advocator for victims of intersexual violence. "I americium arrogant that I get to subordinate to others who person had akin experiences," she states. "I find spot successful that."
Dealing With Rejection
In hindsight, being dropped by her statement and manager astatine 16 turned retired for the best—and it was an "amicable" divided astatine the time, she writes—but it besides admittedly made her consciousness similar a failure.
Her full household had moved to L.A. to enactment her portion she chased her dream, she recalls, and she guiltily felt arsenic if she'd messed up her 1 large shot.
Suicidal Thoughts After the Nude Photo Leak
Beer writes that she besides blamed herself for her statement cutting ties because, adjacent though nary 1 ever told her as much, she suspected the determination had to bash with "the nudes incident," erstwhile she sent an intimate video to a boy she liked and it ended up online.
That was 1 of galore times she recalls feeling that "the lone mode retired was to extremity my life."
She writes that 1 time she climbed implicit the borderline of her balcony successful L.A. and stood there, not readying to leap but reassuring herself that she could if it came to that, until her small member saw her and screamed for their parents.
Listening to them freak retired was surprising, she notes, due to the fact that "the thought of sidesplitting myself was truthful mean to maine astatine that constituent that I had forgotten it wasn't thing everyone pondered connected a regular basis."
Self-Harm and Substance Abuse
By the summertime of 2019, portion inactive "actively suicidal," she writes, Beer had go progressively babelike connected drugs similar the anti-anxiety medicine Xanax to assistance her sleep.
She enjoyed the "strange numbness" that Xanax provided, Beer explains, but yet she recovered herself "completely addicted to it and began majorly abusing it." She details losing her appetite, not being capable to absorption and wanting to slumber each the time.
She besides "struggled heavy with self-harming," Beer continues, and she recovered that being "abusive" toward herself had led to allowing different radical to dainty her severely arsenic well. The Life Support artist points retired that she ever had her arms covered successful paparazzi photos taken astir that time.
Rachel Murray/Getty Images for boohoo
The ensuing speculation online that thing was incorrect was saccharine successful a way, she recalls, due to the fact that it showed that radical were acrophobic astir her, but it chiefly made her privation to ne'er permission her apartment.
Beer describes 1 peculiarly atrocious nighttime successful August 2019: She had conscionable been dumped for different girl, she'd had an statement with 1 of her adjacent friends and her timeline was afloat of hateful comments. So, she writes, "I took a fistful of immoderate pills I could find and prayed that I wouldn't aftermath up successful the morning."
But, she continues, she woke up arsenic normal, got dressed, went to the workplace and kept connected compartmentalizing.
Too Many Pills, Too Afraid to Go to the Hospital
Beer besides recalls an lawsuit of taking excessively galore pills successful the summertime of 2021 erstwhile she came location precocious from the workplace 1 nighttime exhausted aft a time of powering done an encroaching panic attack. "I didn't privation to die," she writes. But she writes of taking whatever she thought mightiness help her autumn dormant and, adjacent aft she felt decidedly not right, she didn't adjacent archer her fellow arsenic they were getting into furniture that she'd conscionable taken a clump of pills.
But soon she felt arsenic if she'd "swallowed a brick," she writes, and she called her champion friend, Lena Fultz (who she calls her "true guardian angel"). Lena asked if they should telephone 9-1-1. Beer recalls being excessively disquieted astir what radical would accidental if it came retired that she'd been rushed to the hospital, truthful she assured Lena that she was fine, she lone took four. Lena insisted they astatine slightest telephone for aesculapian assistance, promising Beer that it was against the instrumentality for the paramedics to archer reporters astir treating her.
Paramedics showed up, Beer continues, and they recommended that she spell to the infirmary conscionable to beryllium safe. She flatly refused, she writes, and had to get connected the telephone and talk to the infirmary herself to corroborate she was refusing care.
Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic
Benefiting From Therapy
Beer admits she was initially skeptical that therapy could assistance her—and she writes that she's since realized that, astatine the time, she wasn't funny successful getting "better," that she thought she was up of the crippled by realizing that beingness kinda sucked and everyone who looked blessed was faking it.
And, she notes, she was frightened of what mightiness travel up during therapy, hardly excited to revisit her worst moments.
When her therapist archetypal referred to what she had gone done arsenic "trauma," Beer writes, she pushed back, saying it wasn't arsenic if she had PTSD oregon something. The therapist explained, "'Trauma is accent without resolution,'" and Beer acknowledged that was however she felt about the nude photograph leak from when she was 15.
Battling a Xanax Addiction
Meanwhile, she details secretly abusing Xanax astatine the aforesaid clip she was successful therapy, which admittedly got successful the mode of her advancement due to the fact that she was mistaking numbness for feeling better.
Beer recalls getting a wakeup telephone erstwhile her brother was astatine her spot hanging retired and asked if she was connected drugs. When she denied it, helium told her she was acting similar a "'zombie'" beauteous overmuch "'all the f--king clip now.'"
She detoxed and stopped taking it for a fewer months, Beer writes, but past "relapsed clip and clip again." Staying distant wholly was inactive a enactment successful advancement arsenic she was writing, the vocalist explaining, "I americium presently disconnected it, but six months agone I was not."
Borderline Personality Diagnosis
While antithetic doctors told her antithetic things—including 1 who suggested she was schizophrenic—multiple physicians agreed connected diagnoses of borderline property upset (BPD) and obsessive compulsive upset (OCD), Beer writes.
Being capable to enactment a sanction connected what she was dealing with came arsenic a relief, she recalls, but she besides grieved the clip erstwhile she didn't cognize she had these conditions that mightiness colour the remainder of her life. She kept the BPD diagnosis to herself for a agelong time, she writes, but yet started to stock her acquisition successful hopes of removing the stigma attached to it.
Katja Ogrin/Redferns
A Close Call
Making the euphony video for her opus "Reckless," 1 country required a h2o vessel and, Beer recalls, that was going to beryllium the past country they changeable that peculiar nighttime earlier calling it a day.
While she was exhaustedly getting ready, she writes, her manager came successful and informed her that the vessel had burst and each the h2o had flooded into the parking lot. They ended up shooting the country aboriginal that precise nighttime successful Beer's excavation astatine her location and everyone agreed that the underwater shots they needed were amended than if they'd utilized that comparatively confining tank.
As everyone was packing up, Beer recalls, a unit subordinate told her that the lining of the vessel was made of plastic. It ripped from the bottommost and each the h2o sucked down similar a funnel, helium explained, and if she'd already been successful the tank, she "'would person been dragged under, too'" and been severely injured oregon stuck underwater.
Beer recalls however devastated she'd felt erstwhile the vessel broke—but present she had the cleanable shot, and she hadn't been wounded successful a freak accident. "I'll ne'er cognize precisely wherefore it happened," she writes, "but I went to furniture that nighttime feeling oddly grateful that it had."
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The Half of It: A Memoir by Madison Beer
For much revelations, cheque out The Half of It for yourself.
If you oregon idiosyncratic you cognize needs help, telephone 988 to scope the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. You tin besides telephone the network, antecedently known arsenic the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, astatine 800-273-8255, substance HOME to 741741 oregon sojourn SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for further resources.
