Hayley Williams of Paramore once ‘quit the band’ due to struggles with depression

The singer admits to suffering with mental health issues in a new interview

Hayley Williams, singer of Paramore, has admitted that she left the band for a period in 2015 after suffering extensively from depression.

In a new interview with The Faderthe star opens up on her struggles with mental health issues, which led her to seek out a therapist. “For the first time in my life, there wasn’t a pinhole of light at the end of the tunnel,” she explains. “I thought, ‘I just wish everything would stop.’ It wasn’t in the sense of, ‘I’m going to take my life.’ It was just hopelessness. Like, ‘What’s the point?’ I don’t think I understood how dangerous hopelessness is. Everything hurts.”

Stating that she actually quit Paramore for a period in 2015, Williams continues: ““I just was done. I thought, There’s gotta be something else that I’m good at in my life. Maybe it’s time for me to go find that.”

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Guitarist Taylor York helped with Hayley’s recovery, the article confirms. “We both had doubts, and we had unity in that,” Taylor says. “I told her she didn’t have to do stuff. But I just kept writing, and then there was this time that she got it again.”

The group released their new, fifth album ‘After Laughter’ last month, before returning to the stage with a triumphant show at London’s Royal Albert Hall.

Credit: Getty

As part of that same tour, Chvrches singer Lauren Mayberry joined Paramore on-stage for a performance of ‘Misery Business’ in Glasgow. It’s not the first time Mayberry has teamed up with Williams, with the latter singer recently appearing on a remix of Chvrches song ‘Bury It’.

Speaking of their comeback, the band also recently revealed that they came very close to splitting up entirely in the wake of their previous album, 2013’s self-titled record.

“At a certain point I just felt like we’d been through – like how much more can you really go through?,” said Williams in a separate interview. “I know that people don’t always keep the same friends throughout their entire life but I always thought I would.”

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York continued: “We’d been doing it for so long I think we were like ‘why are we doing this?’ If we don’t want to be here, if we’re not passionate about this, there is no point.”

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