Jeezy says that he went through a “brief moment” he considered suicide while attending a Youth Challenge program in Fort Stewart, Georgia. He discussed the period from his life while speaking with PEOPLE. The interview comes amid of the release of his new memoir, Adversity For Sale.
“You’re basically in the Marines or the Army and people are telling you what to do. You gotta shine your boots,” the Atlanta rapper recalled. “I don’t know about anybody else [but] I’m just not good at being told what to do. And I’m coming from a place where I’m basically a boss. But maybe a few weeks in I’m like, ‘Hold up, I’m working out.’ It taught me structure. And it took me out of the environment that I was in for me to become even more focused than I was because I thought I was focused, but I really wasn’t. I didn’t have a plan. I just was going through the motions.”
From there, Jeezy continued: I remember standing there and saying to myself: ‘Man, if you go back home and you don’t figure this out. Because I don’t want to end up like my friends.’ My friends became junkies and they were getting killed and all these things. So it was all this stuff in my head. I just remember standing there and it was for a brief moment, I would say at least about 10 minutes, I actually contemplated jumping in the water. I had never had suicidal thoughts, but I [thought], ‘Well, shit, if I just jump in the water, I ain’t gotta deal with this, I ain’t gotta go back home, I gotta do none of these things.’”
Jeezy has been speaking with numerous outlets about the book in recent weeks, including Good Morning America as well as Rap Radar, among others. He says that his goal is to inspire his fans to fight through adversity and achieve their dreams. Adversity For Sale is available now.
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