Michelle Williams Discusses Mental Health Challenges and Returning To Broadway

US singer Michelle Williams arrives for the world premiere of Disney’s “The Lion King” at the Dolby theatre on July 9, 2019 in Hollywood. (Photo by Robyn Beck / AFP) (Photo credit should read ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images)

Michelle Williams is opening up about her mental health struggles and she believed it would ruin her Broadway career. 

Currently starring as Death Becomes Her, the former Destiny Child star shared how she overcame her challenges during an interview on Good Morning America.

“I had to leave. Broadway show because of my mental health,”  Williams told Robin Roberts. “And I thought that door was closed for me to return on Broadway. I thought I’d blew it. I thought I’d be seen as a liability. ‘Can she maintain?’ And six years later I get a phone call, minding my business, saying, ‘We want you to come to New York.”

To deal with her mental help, Williams had checked herself into a treatment facility for her depression. She explained how she thought she could star in Once on This Island but soon realized that she was overwhelmed.

“I wasn’t as well as I probably should have been, and it just got to the point where I had to check out of the show,” she recalled. “I didn’t want to do it. To me, that was two blows in the same year: checking into a treatment facility for depression and then checking out of show, still, because of it.”

Williams says the best decision she made was to put her mental health first and is wants to be an advocate for others facing the same challenges  On top of acting, she’s pursuing her certification in life coaching from the Coaching and Positive Psychology (CaPP) Institute led by CEO Valorie Burton.

“I love being able to help people,” said Williams. “Again, I didn’t know where my life was going to go. And I love helping people make certain life transitions or coaching them out of what I was in.”

“Being in preparation for the storms that lie ahead: you have to be anchored,” Williams added.

Still performing eight shows a week at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre in New York City, Williams noted “when you think that you did wrong and something happened, [you can] get another chance.”

She also got to meet who played Lisle Von Rhuman in the film version of Williams’ Viola Van Horn on stage.

“I turned into a little girl, or [whomever you become when you meet] somebody you admire and respect so much,” Williams said on GMA, of the moment she met the Oscar-nominated actress. “I didn’t want to keep her waiting. My hair and makeup was all over the place!”


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