Alicia Keys has been opening up about her journey to self-care. Since the launch of her skincare brand Keys Soulcare, the 15- time Grammy award-winner has been more vocal about her life experiences and how it has shaped her to become the person she is today. In a cover story with Fast Company, the musician/mogul is once again speaking about what she’s learned about herself over the years.
"I value myself now, and I think for a lot of years, I didn't," she said. "I learned that in order for me to be the most productive, I have to be well. I prioritize myself in a way that I just didn't [before]."
The singer and songwriter became a breakout star at 20-years-old with her mega-hit “Fallin’” and with her fame quickly rising more eyeballs were on her and so was the pressure to be perfect.
"I think we all deal with this idea that we're supposed to be perfect in some way. The same thing happened to me when I was 20. You don't even know who you are at 20. You're a little bit of what your mama told you. You're a little bit of what the world told you. And then you're supposed to go off into the world," she said.
In her 2020 memoir More Myself, Alicia recounted the time she broke down in tears in a dressing room in 2006 after her need to be perfect started to take a toll on her. “Amid the constant moving…the constant pleasing and pretending, I’d delivered my grandest performance yet: convincing the world that, behind my smile, all was as perfect as it appeared,” she wrote.
She also had a bout with depression, Peoplereported. “I was feeling so sad all the time, and I couldn’t shake it,” she said. “I started burying my feelings, and it got to a point where I couldn’t even tell my family or my friends, ‘I’m twisted,’ or ‘I’m exhausted,’ or ‘I’m so angry.’ … I became a master of putting up the wall so that I was unreadable.”
Now, she’s able to enjoy the “simple things” in life such as spending time with her family.
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Featured image by Taylor Hill/Getty Images