Tamar Braxton seems to be on the mend following an alleged suicide attempt, and the Grammy-nominated singer and reality TV show star wanted fans to know exactly what she was struggling with leading up to her hospitalization earlier this month.
In a lengthy statement shared on Instagram Thursday, Braxton thanked people who “prayed for me, thought of me, sent me their love and has showered me with their support.”
” In this present moment, it is my only responsibility to be real with myself and to be real with the ones who truly love me and care for my healing. I have without fail, shared with you my brightest days, and I know that sharing with you what has been my darkest will be the light for any man or woman who is feeling the same defeat I felt just only a week ago,” she continued in the post that featured a photo of herself with her son Logan.
Braxton went to explain that a career in reality television contributed greatly to her unhappiness. Fans first fell in love with the youngest Braxton singer when she debuted on WE tv’s Braxton Family Values. Braxton later starred in the spin-off Tamar & Vince with her ex-husband, Vincent Hubert. She’s also appeared on Celebrity Big Brother, winning last year, and currently stars in VH1’s To Catch A Beautician. She was hospitalized shortly before the premiere of her second WE tv spin-off, Get Ya Life, which has been pushed back until September 10.
“Over the past 11 years there were promises made to protect and portray my story with the authenticity and honesty I gave. I was betrayed, taken advantage of, overworked, and underpaid. I wrote a letter over 2 months ago asking to be freed from what I believed was excessive and unfair,” she added in the statement. “I explained in personal detail the demise I was experiencing. My cry for help went totally ignored. However the demands persisted.”
“It was my spirit, and my soul that was tainted the most. There are a few things I count on most to be, a good mother, a good daughter, a good partner, a good sister, and a good person. Who I was, begun to mean little to nothing, because it would only be how I was portrayed on television that would matter. It was witnessing the slow death of the woman I became, that discouraged my will to fight. I felt like I was no longer living, I was existing for the purpose of a corporations gain and ratings, and that killed me,” Braxton continued.
The singer said she’s speaking up and detailing exactly what she’s gone through because “mental illness is real. We have to normalize acknowledging it and stop associating it with shame and humiliation.”
Braxton now wants to help others struggling with mental illness and vowed to “do everything in my power to aid those who [suffer] from mental illness…including those who[se]mental illness was only a result from the toxic, systematic, bondage that dwells television.”
Braxton explained the shortcomings when it comes to being a reality star, citing the lack of union protections and argued for the promotion of “ethical business practices” that don’t exploit Black talent.
She ended her note saying that her “rise will not be in vain.”