Pete Wentz has joined the Jed Foundation’s Half of Us campaign, a suicide prevention program that’s also supported by such stars as Billy Corgan and Mary J. Blige. To help college students understand how he too has struggled with thoughts of suicide, the Fall Out Boy frontman spoke to MTV’s college channel, mtvU.
“I always had this underlying depression,” Wentz says in the interview. “The darkest moment was when we had just finished recording our major-label record, and two days later we were going to go to Europe and I felt completely lost and out of control.”
Soon after, Wentz took a considerable amount of Ativan (an anti-anxiety pill) and called his manager. “I was slurring my words,” Wentz explains, “So he called my mom, and my mom called me and she came and got me and we went to the hospital. I came home and we realized that we needed to do more than just keep [my] head above water. It’s not really about keeping your head above water–it’s about feeling all right and feeling safe in your own skin.”
