Kid Cudi was the latest guest on “Red Table Talk,” the Facebook Watch talk show hosted by Jada Pinkett Smith, Willow Smith, and Adrienne Banfield-Norris (Jada’s mother.) The topic of discussion was mental health. After Jada opened up about her own struggles with depression, drug abuse, and suicidal thoughts, Cudi talked about his own battles. He discussed the circumstances surrounding his checking into rehab in 2016.
After the Smiths talked about how much they admired him, and how much of a hero he had been to so many people, Cudi responded that it was that kind of pressure that had lead him down a dark path. He said that earlier in his life, he felt like, “I have to live up to be this person, and I don't feel like that. It's like doing a comedy but you're miserable. It's like my life was like this show and I was always supposed to be on, but when the show was over I was completely miserable.” He added, “I'm just trying to keep it together, because, Kid Cudi, everybody's hero, this person that you look up to. I didn't want to let anybody down.”
Cudi said that he turned to drugs to deal with his depression, and he kept his drug abuse a secret, even from his friends. “I went out of my way to keep what I was going through hidden, because I was ashamed,” he said.
He has been off of drugs for over two years, Cudi said. He said that he feels closer to his family and friends now, and spends more time with his eight-year-old daughter.
At the end of the episode, a “Red Table Talk” production assistant showed Cudi his tattoo of the lines “I hope they understand that I really understand That they don't understand,” from Cudi's 2010 song “Ghost!”
