Madison Beer Details Her Experience With Online Hate, Suicidal Thoughts In New Book

Warning: This article discusses suicide.

At age 13, Madison Beer was on her way to a burgeoning music career after Justin Bieber shared one of her videos on Twitter. Just a few years later, she was struggling with depression that began after nude photos of her were leaked on social media and spiraled amid an onslaught of online vitriol that culminated in her attempting to take her life when she was 19.

“When I first started out in the industry the main thing I was told was, ‘Have thick skin and don’t let them get to you.’ But I felt like I was lying to myself and my fans. It does get to me. It’s horrible to experience and I don’t think I should be sending a message to people that it’s fine,” she says.

“I don’t think that’s a fair thing to tell my young fans and I also don’t think it’s a fair thing to tell haters. They need to know—even though it’s exactly what they want, of course—that their words do hurt, and their words can kill.”

Now 24 and having largely reconciled with her experiences, Beer is ready to share just about all of it.

Her memoir The Half of It, out April 25, delves into her dealings with social media hatred, the rejection she felt after being dropped by her label and manager, her bouts with substance abuse and self-harm, and the stepping stones that brought her back to self-love. Even with hindsight, it’s evident the wounds of her past are still festering when she talks about them.

“I do have so much love around me and I’m so grateful, but by the same token I feel like it’s my responsibility to say, Hey, this is someone who’s been doing this for 10-plus years and I’m still not immune to the hate,” says the Reckless singer. “If I were to have been successful in my suicide attempt, people would have been like, ‘Oh my goodness we had no idea… that so horrible.’ But of course, since I’m still alive that empathy is sadly lacking.”

Beer says she still has “a bitter taste in my mouth” and still struggles with social media, “whether it’s body image issues or insecurities and self-doubt as most, if not every, 24-year-old girl does. It’s hard because it has done so much negative to my psyche, but it’s also [more recently] brought so much positivity to my life and I’ve been able to reach and touch people.”

She says she largely stepped away from it when she was in her darkest place, but found herself unable to escape the public eye.

“I wanted to so badly to disappear and be not seen for a while… but I felt like I could never get away from the public eye,” she recalls. “Even when I would leave my house and go outside, when I was self-harming and wearing sweatshirts people noticed and it was like, ‘Why is she wearing a hoodie in 90-degree weather?’ All of it was weighing really negatively on me and I was just feeling terrible about myself and my life.”

The one bright spot, she says, was the album she was making at the time. “I named my album Life Support because it really was that. It was the reason I got out of bed in the morning and it gave me a reason to want to survive this and stay alive. Without that reason I don’t know what could’ve and would’ve happened.”

Beer recalls when she hit her lowest point and began contemplating suicide. “It was just too much for me. I struggled with the ideation aspect of it for years but it all really boiled up when I was 19 and I was like, I don’t want to be alive,” she says, describing herself at a crossroads.

“Do I continue living this way? Do I end up taking my own life and is that how the story ends? Or am I going to try, at least try, to fix my life, whatever that looks like and whatever that means,” she says.

“It was the question I had to ask. I obviously made the decision to try to get better and seek real solid help. And I am grateful that I have. I feel a lot better. I feel stable, I feel like I love myself now and I feel confident. It’s a journey I feel grateful to have experienced and I can hopefully be a voice to others who might feel the same at times.”

Beer says she believes the entertainment industry is generally taking better care of its own these days than it did when her photos surfaced online. “I think it’s a little better than when I was younger. My nudes got leaked when I was 15 years old and if something like that happened now I think that young girl would be better protected,” she says.

But she has also very different advice for those coming up than what she received.

“A big thing I tell people is, Stay true to yourself. If something doesn’t feel right in your soul and you want to say no, say no. And be proud of that, be confident in it.”

If you or someone you know is going through a crisis, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or (800) 273-TALK (8255).

Mind Reading (formerly Hollywood & Mind) is a recurring column that lives at the intersection of entertainment and wellbeing, and features interviews with musicians, actors and other culture influencers who are elevating the conversation around mental health.