Sunmi says she’s been “fighting mental illness for a long time”

“I was afraid to express the raw feelings I experienced”

Sunmi has opened up about her struggle with mental health, and how her recent single ‘Oh Sorry Ya’ reflects it.

The K-pop idol had touched on her personal battle with mental illness on the latest episode of the Spotify: Mic Check podcast, in light of the release of her new track. Sunmi was previously revealed to have been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder in 2020, as archived by Soompi.

“Actually I had been fighting with mental illness for a long time and the first song that revealed my pain was ‘Borderline’,” she shared. ‘Borderline’ had first debuted on the singer’s Warning world tour in 2019, and was initially planned as an unreleased track, however was subsequently released as part of her 2021 mini-album ‘1/6’.

“I was afraid to express the raw feelings I experienced,” she recalled. “But before I even realised, I [eventually] overcame all the pain at some point. So finally I got the courage to make ‘Borderline’.” She also shared that she wrote and released the song in order to “comfort and sympathise with those who are suffering”.

Despite her ongoing fight with borderline personality disorder, the release of ‘Oh Sorry Ya’ marked a new chapter in her journey. “I thought about saying sorry to the Sunmi in the lyrics of ‘Borderline’,” she explained of her intentions when writing and producing ‘Oh Sorry Ya’.

“The new Sunmi is no longer sick because of the old Sunmi, no matter how much the old Sunmi tries to hurt, the new Sunmi became stronger [by] not getting hurt at all,” she concluded.

‘Oh Sorry Ya’, which dropped on March 8, was co-produced by Sunmi, alongside Los Angeles-based songwriting duo LYRE. The song was released in collaboration with Spotify as part of the platform’s new EQUAL X Spotify Singles project, which aims to uplift female artists in celebration of International Women’s Day.

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