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Here’s The One Thing That Nearly Tanked Eve’s Rap Career

"I will never forget this."

Back in the day, Eve was one of the hottest female emcees in the game and the first lady of the undeniably gritty, Ruff Ryders label. But the hip-hop community came frighteningly close to not getting the fiery femcee altogether, thanks to one thing. During the most recent episode of The Talk, the rapper-turned-daytime hostess revealed that she has been struggling with an anxiety disorder that almost ruined the early stages of her music career.

The mental health conversation was brought up while the talk-show hosts were discussing Kendall Jenner’s admitted issues with anxiety. Chiming in, Eve revealed that her own issue grew so bad that she had to take medication to maintain some level of stability. “For me with anxiety, fame is one of those things, it comes with being in the public light. But it’s really hard, and it can be very hard and nobody can teach you about that,” she said. “When I first started in the business I had horrible anxiety attacks, so much so that I was on medication. Only people that know me closely know this and it took a lot of years for me to get over it. You know, when you’re hot and you’re popular, you never want to stop because you’re scared if you stop for one second everybody’s going to forget about you, so you work yourself crazy. Your management works you crazy. Your friends, your family, people change. They tell you that you’ve changed and you take that stuff to heart. It took me probably a year for me to get over my anxiety. It was a hard thing. It’s a scary thing.”

The 39-year-old rapper also recalled a time in which she found herself screaming and crying in a hotel room while she was on tour. “For me, at that time I was actually on a tour. I will never forget this. I was in a hotel room and I got up to go to the bathroom. I heard this noise and it was me crying,” she continued. “It was a sound I had never heard from myself and I was balling, crying and I called my manager and was like, ‘I can not finish this tour. I don’t know what’s wrong with me but I’m not happy. I just want to be happy.’ I wasn’t happy, and you have all this stuff! I was exhausted. I was exhausted, but also, my friends were also like, ‘You’ve changed.’ There was so much coming at me and I was trying to do so many things. Thankfully, my manager at the time though was like,’You know what? I’m with you. Let’s pray.’ We prayed in the hotel room and he got me off the tour without being sued, which was great [laughs]. He was a really good manager.”

Since then, Eve has worked hard to keep her anxiety in check. She said she owes her good fortune to her doctor, manager and “some really good people that helped me and told me what to do.” Check out Eve's full thoughts below. 

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