On October 15 Megan Thee Stallion appeared on Saturday Night Live where she hosted for the first time as well as being the musical guest making her the second female rapper to pull double duty since Queen Latifah in 2004. Fans were praising her performance as she brought an unmatchable energy to the skits and performances. The most memorable moment that got everyone talking was the performance of her track “Anxiety” from her sophomore album “Traumazine” . Many fans were stunned and heartbroken by her vulnerability on stage and praised her for her performance.
There is no denying that the rap star has been going through a lot. From her mother’s passing in 2019 to the Tory Lanez lawsuit. In fact not too long before her SNL performance her house was robbed of $300k – $400k worth of items. After that Megan tweeted to fans that she would be taking a break saying, “Hotties I’m really sorry but after SNL I really gotta take a break I’m so tired, physically and emotionally”.
During her performance Megan stood on stage in a pageant-like red dress infront of a tiara with her background dancers dressed similarly. Megan had a sash that said, “anxiety” on while the other girls had ones such as “overlooked”, “underpaid” and “insecure”. The message being that underneath all these glitz and glamour there is a pain that is rarely often seen. Megan thee stallion often portrays herself with a bad b*tch persona but with this performance she’s revealing that at the end of the day she too has anxieties and insecurity and isn’t invincible.
Mental health in the music industry is a tricky subject to navigate especially with female celebrities. Many women in the industry often have to put on persona’s for their audience but when they decide to be vulnerable they are either praised or ridiculed. The music industry puts women under a lot of pressure in terms of how they perform and present themselves and the public doesn’t make it any easier. For one the paparazzi and tabloids hounding female celebrities and looking for a way to expose them at their lowest moment’s doesn’t help. Many stars including Kiera Knightley have admitted to having a deep fear of the paparazzi. Female celebrities are also more likely to receive online hate than their male counterparts that actually being the case for Megan.
After the Tory Lanez incident in 2020, Megan began to receive a lot of online hate and backlash. Many people had claimed that she had lied about getting shot and some people who didn’t deny that she had gotten shot claimed that she must have done something to deserve it. This put her under a lot of pressure during an extremely traumatic event. Megan has always been open about her mental health and she did open up about how the event affected her in an interview she did with Gayle King where she was nearly in tears describing the situation. The Megan Thee Stallion SNL performance was so monumental because it showcased a vulnerability that female celebrities are very rarely allowed without it being put in a negative light. It was also important because it was a push back against the strong black woman narrative that is placed on black female rap stars. Megan also announced the launch of her new mental health website Bad B*tches Have Bad Days Too. All in all the performance was absolutely stunning and we all wish her the best.