“Just as a snake sheds its skin,” Megan Thee Stallion proclaims in her new single “Cobra,” “we must shed our past, over and over again.” In the video for “Cobra,” her first single since 2022 and the first since Tory Lanez was sentenced to 10 years for shooting her, Megan emerges warily and nearly nude from the cavernous insides of a cobra. But instead of hitting us with her signature braggadocio, the 28-year-old spits dark truths about her ongoing emotional pain and mental health crises: “Breakin’ down and I had the whole world watchin’, but the worst part is really who watched me. Every night I cried, I almost died, and nobody close tried to stop it.”
In another scene, we see Megan trapped inside a display case, peeling dead skin from her face and fully naked body as serpentine human spectators silently record her molting. Each bar lays bare a tortuous torment: the death of her parents, being cheated on and exploited, alcoholism, sleeplessness, anxiety, depression and thoughts of self-harm. She pleads, “Lord, give me a break. I don’t know how much more of this s— I can take.”
The video reportedly racked up a staggering 2.14 million views in a day, becoming the most-watched YouTube debut in 24 hours by a solo woman hip-hop artist this year. (It had 7 million views a week later.) All those who’ve viewed the video have witnessed one of the music industry’s most acclaimed and renowned Black women artists confess, “Yes, I’m very depressed. How can somebody so blessed wanna slit they wrist?”
With the possible exception of Meghan Markle, who said she experienced suicidal ideation while living with the royals and dealing with the British media, I can’t recall any other Black woman’s story of her mental health crises receiving this much attention. With “Cobra,” Megan Thee Stallion has thrown a long-overdue floodlight on an urgent mental health crisis hiding in plain sight: the rate of suicide among Black women, particularly successful Black women.
A new study from Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine and Howard University that looked only at women in the U.S. found that Black women aged 18 to 65 “have the highest risk for suicide irrespective of their socioeconomic status.” In fact, the study found that Black women in the highest income strata, those considered “blessed” like Megan, had a 20% increase in the odds of suicide and self-inflicted injury compared to white women in the lowest socioeconomic strata.
Black women in the highest income strata had a 20% increase in the odds of suicide and self-inflicted injury compared to white women in the lowest socioeconomic strata.
“Our findings were surprising because most studies usually show that the rate of suicide was higher in white women in the U.S. However, when we begin to look at the intersection of race and income, a different picture begins to emerge,” corresponding author Temitope Ogundare explained in a statement.
In the span of three years, she was shot and injured by a former friend, and discredited, aggressively smeared, cyberbullied and ridiculed by the person who assaulted her. Many of her industry peers, the general public, and even some of her own team and longtime friends accused her of lying. Then she was dragged through her assaulter’s widely publicized circus of a trial. All that occurred when she was in a feud with her old label, 1501 Entertainment, that lasted for years.
She’d already lost both her parents. She lost her father when she was 15. Then, in her early 20s, a month before she scored her first Billboard entry with 2019’s “Big Ol’ Freak,” she lost her mom, a former rapper who inspired her daughter’s love for hip-hop and doubled as a manager. She lost her grandmother the same month she lost her mother. “Man, I miss my parents,” she raps on “Cobra.”
Megan’s new release may be some people’s introduction to her vulnerable and forthcoming lyrics about hitting rock bottom, but it’s far from her first.
Last year, Megan disclosed how she was feeling after Tory Lanez shot her. “New people, I probably don’t even hold a conversation longer than 30 minutes because I feel like every time I’m talking, I’m like on the verge of tears, and I don’t wanna have to explain to strangers why I’m crying,” she told Gayle King in her first interview since the 2020 shooting. “It’s too much. I feel crazy. I’m sad. And I feel like I have to hold it in because I have to be strong for so many people.”
Throughout her 2022 album, aptly titled “Traumazine,” the rapper wove in updates on how the assault continued to affect her emotional and mental health. The breakout track “Anxiety,” a precursor of sorts to “Cobra,” contained equally disarming vulnerability and heartbreaking revelations about Meg’s suicidal ideation (“I’m really thinkin’ ‘bout dialin’ 911, ‘til I freak ‘cause they probably won’t think it’s that deep”) and how she saw herself in Marilyn Monroe and Whitney Houston, both of whom suffered tragic, untimely deaths. There’s an obvious bias in health care that harms Black women. So when the topic is mental health, the answer can’t just be that more Black women need to see a therapist. When she testified against Tory Lanez (real name Daystar Peterson), she said, “I wish he would have just shot and killed me if I knew I would have to go through this torture.” Later in her victim impact statement, which was read in court in her absence, she recalled spiraling “into a dark and angry place where I thought my life was worthless and I felt loneliness and shame.” I’ve been covering Megan Thee Stallion since she catapulted to supernova stardom in 2020 with the “Savage Remix,” a Beyoncé-assisted banger that landed the breakout star her first No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and two of her three Grammy wins in 2021. As strong as she appears, the 28-year-old has been crying out for help and trustworthy, reliable support for years now: in the recording studio, onstage, in interviews, in court, even in a New York Times op-ed called “Why I Speak Up for Black Women.” As Megan argued in that op-ed, there’s an obvious bias in health care that harms Black women. So when the topic is mental health, the answer can’t just be that more Black women need to see a therapist. Suicide among Black women, like every health disparity Black women experience, is a systemic failing that requires systemic solutions. I applaud Megan’s steadfast commitment to speaking hard, dark truths to power for her own sake and for Black girls and women everywhere, for shedding her past on a public stage again and again. And I hope that this rebirth comes with some much-deserved lightness and unconditional love. If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or chat live at 988lifeline.org. You can also visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for additional support.
Patrice Peck
Patrice Peck is an MSNBC columnist; a journalist covering the intersection of race, identity and popular culture; and the creator of the Coronavirus News for Black Folks newsletter. Her bylines have appeared in The New York Times, BuzzFeed, Ebony and other publications. She holds a degree in Black studies from Amherst College and a master's in journalism from New York University. 
