In a new interview with Yungblud, Willow Smith discusses her experiences with anxiety episodes on stage.

During an appearance on the YUNGBLUD Podcast, she said: “I felt extremely unsafe in my music career in the past and that feeling of insecurity or unsafety like I didn’t feel protected, which went really deep.”

Willow Smith cited a performance on The Jimmy Fallon Show as a particularly triggering occasion, explaining that many of her terrible memories from early live appearances had “just been resurfacing.” She said:

I had like a flashback of being like 10 or nine and having like an anxiety attack on set and basically feeling like everyone around me was like ‘You’re just a brat. Why aren’t you grateful?’.

They didn’t see it as an anxiety attack, they saw it as a tantrum. Now, I look back and know it was an anxiety attack. [I] tell myself that, ‘You’re not nine, you’re a grown-ass woman.’ I have to retrain my mind.

My mental health is in a very fragile state, but I think it’s in a state where it’s about to grow in a really awesome way.

On July 18, 2021, Smith had her hair shaved on stage while performing her 2010 hit single, ‘Whip My Hair’.