With her performance of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" in the musical Dreamgirls, beautiful singer Jennifer Holliday became a star on Broadway and in Hollywood. But Holliday's life and career offstage slipped out of control as she battled a number of diseases including obesity and depression.
Holliday was in despair for more than ten years before she could admit to herself that she had more than just an occasional case of "the blues." Now she shares her story of overcoming depression—day by day—and stresses that seeking medical treatment for this common disease is the key to successful recovery.
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“It's as if my whole life has started over, and God has shown me how to laugh again, to have fun,” she says. Now a volunteer advocate for the National Mental Health Association, she spreads the message that there is a healing path out of depression's darkness. Depression, though, isn’t the only challenge she faces with her health. Holliday was diagnosed years ago with multiple sclerosis, a degenerative inflammatory disease causing physical, mental and sometimes psychiatric problems. She now fights back by exercising regularly, meditating and reading.
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On Mental Health Not Being Sexy
"I'm 50-something years old. I never thought that I would be sitting here talking to you. I used to think, I said to myself, 'I probably would've had a much better career if I could invent myself something to go into rehab.' Because if you're an alcoholic or a drug addict, it's just a sexier thing. And it's just a more acceptable thing. But mental health problems still gets the door shut."
"Not only did I try to take my own life, but those of us who are in the spiritual world, others have tried to take my life as well. But God made the difference for me, in the sense that he held onto me, to love me so much, to keep leaving me here. But I still had to choose life, though. I had to fight for it. I continually still fight every day for my life, not only still battling mental health problems, but battling multiple sclerosis, which also has depression as one of its side effects. So every day I wake up, I don't know what it's going to be. I have been blind. I have been paralyzed. But each day if I wake up, then I know he's left me here for a reason, and...
... I have to say yes. And I have to get up. And I have to make the best of that day."
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On Being Too Big For TV
"I had just been dropped by Geffen Records, and didn't know what I was going to do with my career. And I just kept gaining more and more weight. I had ballooned up to 345 pounds. It was the age of videos, you know, we had just started. So they said, 'Well, Jennifer, you can sing but you're unattractive. So if we make a video of you, we'd have to stretch you, or put you in a shadow box and put people around you.' And that was the '80s, so dance music was coming up, and all of this kind of stuff. So they were like, 'You know we can't make videos with you. So you got a great voice, but no use for you.' So they kicked me to the curb. So I said [losing weight] would help. Probably I could have a boyfriend if I lost weight. I could have a relationship. It would just be all right. So they said, 'Well, there's this new surgery. It has not been approved yet.' And that was the gastric bypass. I was one of the first to have that. So I did that. I lost weight really quickly. Lost all the weight, found out I still had the same issues! Still had the same problems! Two hundred pounds smaller, same issues, OK? Baggage still there! Back to counseling!"
And the counseling did help, along with prayers and her faith. Currently, Jennifer Holliday gives concerts throughout the world and performs with many symphonies across the country. She has performed at the White House on numerous occasions for Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. Bush, and Bill Clinton. She dreams of one day returning to the Broadway stage in another big musical and hopes to continue to grow and develop herself as a singer and actress. Holliday has broadened her talents to the worlds of television and film. She guest starred numerous times on the hit Fox TV show Ally McBeal, as well as appeared on Ellen, Hang Time, and Touched by an Angel.
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