Anne-Marie has revealed that she suffers from an array of mental health disorders and admits they disrupt her daily life and impact her career. The 27-year-old singer-songwriter from Essex has opened up about suffering from anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder, which she says can give off the wrong impression to fans.
The star has been labelled the UK’s biggest selling female artist following huge online success and racking up 1.7 billion YouTube hits. She is also known for her fun-filled performances and passionate on stage presence, so she says it often comes as a shock to people to find this out.
In an interview with The Sun, Anne-Marie, said: “I have a lot of things going on. I have anxiety, I have obsessive compulsive disorder, I have attention deficit disorder and I have dyslexia. I have a lot of things going on in my brain.”
The performer has been incredibly open about her struggles and how they have impacted her day-to-day life and as a result her career. She said: “I suffer really badly with anxiety. It’s something that affects this career so much because people expect you to be confident.
“You’ve chosen this career, which obviously means you’re very confident because you have to go on stage in front of thousands of people and do all these interviews and meet fans. It’s very odd, because it’s so scary to me, every aspect of this career is scary to me. It got to the point where I couldn’t answer the phone or walk into a room by myself.”
Even though her fan base, the ‘ninjas’, adore the chart-topping solo artist for her honesty and openness surrounding mental health, she still worries about giving off the wrong impression to those who have propelled her to her pop platform. Anne-Marie has admitted that she finds it difficult to keep up appearance and her popstar persona when she is off stage and she often walks into venues, pre-gig, without entertaining floods of her fans.
She continued: “On stage, I am who people think I should be. Then you’re off stage and you meet someone – a fan – and think, ‘oh god, they don’t know me like this. “When I’m walking into a venue and avoiding people, I’m not being a diva. I’m just terrified.”
In the past, Anne-Marie has also opened up about her sexuality on album track Perfect with the lyric: “I’ll love who I want to love, ’cause this love is gender-free”. When quizzed on this, she said: “I feel like for me, I’ve never really even thought about it. I’ve just been attracted to who I’ve been attracted to and I feel like I fall in love with people’s souls more than anything.”
The artist first came into the spotlight in 2015 with single Do It Right, since then she has released numerous chart-toppers including Alarm, Ciao Adios, Clean Bandit’s Rockabye and 2002. Her UK tour, Speak Your Mind, will pop up across 14 locations nationwide beginning May – June 2019. She will also be performing at Soundscape festival this summer, as well as Ise of Wight and Longitude.
