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JoJo’s new album good to know is set for release Friday and the singer is opening up about the steps she took to face her issues head on. In a revealing interview with PEOPLE the singer opens up about dealing with depression for the last decade, using alcohol to cope and taking a break from sex while she worked on music.
After being diagnosed with clinical depression 10 years ago, JoJo – born Joanna Levesque, has been managing her mental health for years with a combination of therapy, antidepressants, exercise, yoga and journaling.
“I’ve been going to therapy since I was 18. I had more weight on my shoulders than I could bear,” says the singer. “I would talk to my therapist once a week, and now it’s kind of as needed, but it’s really nice to have that impartial and professional opinion. I’m very fortunate that I could do that.”
Unfortunately, at time she also fell into some unhealthy coping mechanisms, like drinking to blackouts. Today she says she no longer drinks to avoid her problems.
“There have been periods of time where I have consciously not drank, but I’m not sober — my relationship with alcohol is different now,” she says. “I don’t drink to escape.”
On ‘good to know’ she sings about an incident in the not-so-distant past when she cheated on her boyfriend at the time while intoxicated.
“I self-sabotaged because I didn’t feel worthy of a loving, lasting relationship,” JoJo says. “I didn’t love myself. I am actively practicing self-love. It’s not just something you arrive at — I need to really work at it.”
“The album just finds me processing and getting to a place of realizing I’ve never been alone my whole adult life. I’ve always been in a relationship with somebody, and I was delaying a really important part of becoming an adult, which is being independent,” she says.
As part of that independence, JoJo opted not to have sex during the 10 months while she worked on ‘good to know’.
“I would go out on dates, but I loved saying, ‘Okay, good night,’” JoJo said.
