During a recent interview on The Yungblud Podcast, the ‘Surrender’ singer opened up out about the challenges she’s had in her career, and how her answers to those challenges were regarded as “bratty” conduct.

Willow revealed to YungBlud: “For so long, I had a lot of fear. I felt extremely unsafe in my music career in the past and that feeling of insecurity or unsafety, like I didn’t feel protected, which went really deep. It’s interesting because all of those memories and emotions have just been resurfacing.”

The ‘Don’t Save me’ singer then reflected on her previous appearance on Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show, saying she felt a similar sense of dread and tension.

“I had like a flashback of being like 10 or 9 and having like an anxiety attack on set and basically feeling like everyone around me was like ‘You’re just a brat.’ ‘Why aren’t you grateful?’” she explained. “They didn’t see it as an anxiety attack — they saw it as a tantrum, and now I look back and know it was an anxiety attack.”

She went on: “[I] tell myself that, ‘You’re not 9, you’re a grown-ass woman.’ I have to retrain my mind. My mental health is in a very fragile state, but I think it’s in a state where it’s about to grow in a really awesome way.”

Having released her ‘I Feel Everything’ album earlier this month, Smith mentioned the challenges that many people of color experience in the rock ‘n’ roll industry, saying that women and ethnic minorities suffer several barriers and biases while attempting to get into the rock music industry.

“I have seen for so many years, the hate that not just Black women [get] but people of different colours, that aren’t white, that want to come into rock music and into this space,” Smith said. “I just hope that I can show young Black girls, that despite the fact that people are telling us ‘We shouldn’t listen to this music, we shouldn’t dress this way, we shouldn’t sing this way’, we do it! And do it to the fullest! And it’s kinda the best that it’s ever been done.”

To listen to the entire interview, click here.

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