Method Man Opens Up About His Battle With Depression And Speaks On If He Considers Himself A Sex Symbol

Method Man revealed to Men’s Health details about his past battles with depression, anxiety, and substance abuse. He also speaks on if he considers himself a sex symbol or not.

“I was just being irresponsible, with many things coming back to bite me all at once. 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. 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.”

Method Man says his health wasn’t a priority in the early days of his career.

“It wasn’t at all, whatsoever. Wake up, smoke, hit the streets, regular shit, whatever the day called for that day. One thing they don’t do during your promo is give you time to do shit like activities for the gym or stuff like that. Nah, they shuttle you from one place to the next. You get fast food all day. But we were young, so metabolism helped, and none of that stuff stuck,” he said when asked how important health was to him at the beginning of his career.

Ghostface Killah being diagnosed with type-1 diabetes was a wake up call for him.

“Ghostface was the first guy that was really on this fitness shit. A lot of it had to do with his illness.”

The rapper went sober and started to focus more on his health. He suffered insomnia for 18-month and decided to do late-night gym sessions and a combo of protein shakes and cannabis in the morning. He says the change in his lifestyle helped him earn the steady acting career he now has and made him a better lyricist.

The rapper says it was self-love got him to where he is now.

“Self-love: looking at yourself in the mirror and honestly saying that you love yourself,” he said. “What people see now is just happiness.”

Does Method Man thinks he’s a sex symbol?

“I’m not a sex symbol. That’s the whole f point, man. Put the words together. Sex and symbol. What’s the symbol? I’m not doing anything. So what’s the symbol?”