Call Her Daddy - Madison Beer: Blackmailed With My Nudes

Episode Date: April 19, 2023

Madison Beer joins Call Her Daddy to tell her full story for the first time. Madison opens up about having nude videos spread across the internet, multiple instances of blackmail and public slut shaming. She reveals the trauma she endured in childhood and the impact of continuous violation and sexualization. Madison discusses her rock bottom and how these experiences, combined with constant online bullying, almost ended her life. This episode includes discussion of sexual assault and suicide. Please keep this in mind when deciding if, how and when you’ll listen. For resources on these topics, visit spotify.com/resources. Madison’s book, THE HALF OF IT is out April 25th and available for pre-order now at https://madisonbeer.lnk.to/TheHalfofIt

what is up daddy gang it is your founding father alex cooper with call her daddy madison dear welcome to call her daddy thank you i am so happy that we're finally doing this i know you and i have like kind of talked before we were like we need to make it happen and now we're here we're here it feels right Thank you for coming today. Thank you for having me. I'm going to get into it and explain just like a little recap of things that have happened. At 13 years old, you got your first record deal after Justin Bieber posted a video on the internet from YouTube of you singing a cover and it went viral.

And ever since then, you have been in the public eye yes you have over 35 plus million followers on instagram millions on tiktok millions all over every platform crazy um and you're constantly a topic of conversation on the internet unfortunately i was gonna say which i don't know like do you love it do you hate it definitely don't love it it's not fun always it's sometimes it's fun yes when people are nice it's fun but people are not usually nice to me the internet is a dark scary place yeah you just released your memoir the half of it yeah and I am so happy for you because again I feel like the internet has a way to like dehumanize people to come up with narratives and storylines and like it really was powerful reading your book I read the whole thing thank you it's you talk about a lot of personal moments and events in your life that I think give

us a better insight into who you are sitting here today and how you got here. So we're going to get into it. Thank you. Here we go. Let's go back to the beginning to kind of just like start from start from scratch. Okay. You grew up in Long Island. I did. What is like a core childhood memory of yours that's happy and you like smile when you think back on it? I always think about summer camp in a really positive way which wasn't in Long Island it was like an upstate New York but it was always just sort of yeah like an escape obviously from school at the time and like my parents were going through a divorce so it was nice to just have a summer to myself essentially like my parents used to always joke and say that like I was the first kid on the bus and the last kid off and at visiting day kids were like wrapped around their parents ankles begging them not to leave and I was just like is it over yet can you guys go and

I don't know it's just sort of like my escape place I lived for camp so that's definitely my happy place when I think back to my childhood that's a very cute memory when you say it was your escape place I know you mentioned your parents got divorced when you were seven yeah I think sometimes like divorce is so common, but I feel like people forget that like it can really shape who you are. How did your parents divorce affect you growing up? I feel like for me, I spent a lot of time trying to protect my little brother because he was really, really young at the time. He was like four or five. And I remember just wanting to make sure he was okay. And obviously the change of like bouncing back and forth every two,

three days was weird and hard. But I don't know, my main focus was him at the time. So I don't feel like I really dealt with it. And then I actually quickly sort of became like a mediator in not even their relationship, like in my dad's relationships with new women or my mom and my dad. I was really lucky that my parents were able to sort of still have a relationship and be on good terms and in the same room. I have friends I grew up with whose parents couldn't even speak. So I was very grateful for that. But I think that that was sort of the beginning of aging me really quickly and growing up really fast because I was just put in sort of adult positions really young. When you talked about

also like being a mediator I'm also thinking like I think every time a kid's worst nightmare is like who the fuck is going to be my stepmom or my stepdad. Like multiple. Okay there you go like was it hard for you to see like your father dating new women and like was that like a weird dynamic for you my dad's gonna kill me for talking about this love you dad um it was really really weird and really really hard and i think it was um hard in ways that my dad it's i think okay to contextualize growing up i think we all have that moment of like whoa our parents are people weird okay so that's like a moment that I think you have at some point now when I talk about this I do look back as a man going through a divorce who was

going through a difficult time and I empathize with him in those ways but at the same time I look at myself and I'm like I did have to see sort of this like, he's going to kill me, this like revolving door of women. And there was a lot of people and, you know, there was things that I just sort of like had to see whether it was like him kissing someone or even having his arm around someone that was weird. And of course, I was very protective of my mom and didn't want her to be hurt. Of course. And it was hard for sure.

And my dad got remarried once but kind of twice. Like he had a very serious like six, seven year long relationship after his second wife. But it was hard. It definitely also instilled abandonment issues in me very, very young because I would develop this relationship with this woman who I sort of was like, oh, you're like kind of my second mom. And I was actually into it because I enjoyed having these relationships with these like new women.

It was fun. And then they would, I would never see them again. And it was really hard. And I do look back and think that that is like a lot of why I have maybe these like attachment abandonment issues. Yeah. I also appreciate you saying like, my dad is going to kill me. I think it's a really weird, it's fucking weird.

Like, trust me, I sit here and I've talked about family members and I'm like what the fuck and I but weirdly on the other end and I'm sure you felt this through your music and writing like I can imagine the amount of young women listening being like I'm in it right now Madison like yeah one of my parents is going through it and it's not even to judge the parent again because we're almost now gonna get to the age where we're the parent yeah and our kids are like you fucked me up exactly but you can never get over what you saw at a young age we're so impressionable anything we see that doesn't fully make sense to us and isn't like cut and dry it can affect you and you absorb it and it becomes yeah who you are i literally have a song about my dad on my album and it was sort of uncomfortable because i the first time i played

it for him we were in a big label meeting with like 30 people and i wanted everyone to know that it was about my dad because it's quite a beautiful song i kind of am at a place where i'm like it's okay to write a song that maybe is like negative because this is like a sliver of my experience with my dad and he actually took it well he he liked it he was like it's beautiful wait what is the song um it's a song on my album can you tell us the song name or no it starts with an a that's all okay okay that's enough that's all i'll say in your memoir you write about one of the most traumatic experiences that you experienced in your rise of fame and your career when you were only 15 years old you had a nude video leaked and spread across the internet yep can you take us back to that moment madison of like when do you remember finding out that this

got leaked and was spreading um it's unfortunately a memory i'll never be able to shake it's remained so vividly to the point where like I still to this day if I get a call in the middle of the night it's I'm back I'm 15 again and I'm in my room and I'm finding out that this video is out there and it's really scary um so yeah so I yeah I was 15 I probably was even maybe, 13 in some of the videos that exist. And I will get to where I'm going with, you know, the multiples. But so, of course, as a young girl, there was a boy that I liked from back home. And when I was sort of already like in L.A. a bit, going back and forth, I started sending videos of myself to him, as I think a lot of people do. And I also won't like ever convince myself that a lot of people don't do that because I've seen tweets of people being like, maybe you shouldn't have been dumb enough to send that to this person.

And why would you do that? And I'm like, because I was a young girl with also an app called Snapchat that literally deletes the video after you send it. What what's the harm in that? I remember hearing of this thing called Snap Save. And send it what what's the harm in that i remember hearing of this thing called snap save and i was like what the fuck is that and someone told me it was an app that you can download that basically whenever you open a snapchat it saves to your camera roll automatically and i was like that can't be real because you know how you get a notification when someone screen records or takes a screenshot i was like that something has to notify you yeah so i found out that existed but i just didn't think that the person i was sending this stuff to

would remotely ever think to do something like that because this was someone i'd known my whole life so i was wrong obviously when i first first first found out that it was going around i don't i think i was like in bed or something and someone had sent it to me and was like yo this is going I just got this no it was like I just got this sent to me and I was like who sent it to you where did you get this from what the fuck full just like I I just couldn't believe what was going on so I'm in crisis mode just trying to trace it and do damage control and be like where did it come from because maybe if I find the source I can stop this and I

knew in my bones that the second it was texted to me it would end up on the internet unfortunately and I couldn't run from that fact so it went from that to then my friend in Florida the next day and this was someone from New York that originally texted me my friend in Florida the next day calls me and immediately of course I answer and I'm like what what's going on she's like I just saw this video of you and she sent me a different video so now there's two and I'm like whoa whoa whoa whoa and I just knew at that point it was spiraling and I knew it was a matter of time until it got online and it was so it was so hard to just not tell my mom and like I just didn't know what I did not know what to do and then that night um was sort of when I got the like no that wasn't even that night it was that day actually I literally went to dance rehearsals and I remember I was like with my choreographer and I was just working on like

dance movement or something for a show and it was on Twitter and it was just there and I was just looking at it and I remember just dropping to the floor and being like oh my god what do I do and I reached out to the person who posted it and begged them to delete it and they just blocked me straight up just blocked me immediately and then now I'm staring at this gray screen with a dull username and I'm like I just feel powerless in the moment and then I'm just sitting and typing my name in quotation marks on Twitter to see everything people are saying about me and just refreshing in real time and it was just everywhere and then in real time. And it was just everywhere. And then it was on Vine and it was just,

it was just on every social media platform possible so quickly. And I didn't realize until like years later that I, I was the victim in the situation. And I don't know, there's just so many, there's so many things I can say about it. And I think that some people who maybe haven't gone through it or men don't understand how truly like traumatizing something like this can be especially for a minor so when i talk about it like i've had people of course sympathize and be like that's horrible but i've also had people be like who cares okay yeah i'm so sorry first of all it's okay like disgusting that did you reach out to the kid that you were sending this shit to yeah i did and i was

just really disappointed and what did he say he just denied that he did anything and i was like well you're the only person that i sent these things to so and then so it also then just continued to get worse so then other videos would be uploaded that you know would be girls that I could sort of see a resemblance of they maybe looked like me a bit and people would think it was me and then and then I was put in this position that I couldn't admit to one video and deny the rest and again being 15 years old I just denied it all being me I was like this isn't me it's full stop just not me because I was also at the time the adults around me were telling me that it was bad and it was going to ruin my career and oh my goodness this is just horrible and I remember like you know when we were younger like Miley Cyrus had

that video for smoking a bong going viral And I remember thinking to myself something like that at the time was really negative. That if I'm like naked in something, that's a million times worse. And I just remember I kept thinking about that and just being like I'm done. I'm finished. And it was so, so hard for so long. And I felt like the whole world had seen this video and I I also had this this is also the beginning of having like real triggerable PTSD from the situation because right when I sort of started a couple weeks later being able to breathe again and being like okay it's dying

down the internet's finding something else to like fixate on I got an anonymous text message like literally like I was in fucking pretty little liars that was a picture of a computer screen with like 50 videos on it that were all like little and I'm looking at this and I and it's blurry but I can see exactly what it is and again for anyone out there who's like that's a lot of videos I was a young horny kid that like sent videos to a guy that I like like I'm not gonna let anyone shame me for it because it is what it is but like it was a it was a lot and I just like was staring at this and I couldn't believe that they had everything I'd ever sent and I know that

in some of these videos again I'm like 13 14 15 these are like years I'm not talking about a day like these are years worth of like nudes I'm sending to this kid so that just instilled a whole other level of paranoia am I being watched does someone have my snapchat hacked like what is going on right now and I think what was the most like difficult part was knowing in my bones that I wasn't the one who was at fault that the boy who betrayed my trust was the one who should be at fault but that was also me learning very quickly that like men and women get treated very differently i appreciate you saying that because as you were saying like i love that you said like i'm not ashamed like it's so sick and sad there's so many people that may listen to this and being like it's her fault like why would

you send that shit you said you could fill one fucking computer i could have filled 20 madison it's like and like we're all young women that are like right we get snapchat social media we're like exploring our bodies we feel good we're gonna take a picture a lot of us are gonna take a picture and there is something to be said also of like i remember there are moments of like kind of peer pressure of like the guy you're talking to is asking for it and you're like i feel uncomfortable like i want to like impress him so like if i don't do it another girl will like all that you start sending it and then it opens up the floodgates and it's like it doesn't stop and i appreciate you clarifying though and like we will get to that in a little bit of like you are the victim here could you not

have pressed charges on this kid i could have um i think but I feel like maybe this is a downfall of to me but I look at it as a I guess good thing even though maybe there are people in my life who should be held accountable for things I just feel like we were so young and he was a young boy and he was 14 15 years old himself I just as much as much as I was hurt, I don't know. I don't hold it against him. And maybe that's wrong, but I just don't think, I don't think that he's evil.

I think that the people who are evil are the people who, he didn't post it on the internet. I think he saved it to show his guy friends and look and act cool, which is wrong. I'm not saying that that's okay at all. But he was so young.

I think he was just like, look, like hot girl sending me nudes. I really just don't think it was malicious and that's been something that I've had to come to that place because I have seen people do evil shit I've had people in the last so on my 21st birthday was when I like posted on International Women's Day saying sort of like I take back the anxiety and the shame that I felt all these years and I don't let I'm not letting anyone control me because I had someone threatening me at that time being like I'm gonna leak this you're a whore everyone's gonna know all this stuff and that was to me like that is a malicious person that is trying to use like revenge porn yeah I don't think that the guy who did this was doing that to me and I know people are gonna be like that's no no I to back you up there at

first I will say my jaw dropped a little yeah I know I know fuck that motherfucker he should be in jail I get what you're saying again we're having a conversation about minors so I think it's like I get what you're saying where there is also a bro culture that has been instilled of him being able to puff his chest around the kids in elementary school middle school high school to be like look i got these nudes but it wasn't his intent to then be like i want the world to see this there was no again this is though a fucking psa to any men or young boys listening like this can ruin someone's fucking life many girls have committed suicide over this i attempted to over this this was something that was like weighing on me for years and years of just like it just also was like i

felt so betrayed and like not even by yes by him but also by like a girl was the person who first uploaded it i know for a fact because we like traced i had to hire so also i discussed this in my book i had to hire a web sheriff is something that I didn't even know existed out of my own money every dollar I'd earned up until that point in my career I then spent on clearing this and scrubbing it from the internet and something that I want to like bring this conversation back to is that I am hopeful that now the internet would protect a 14 15 year old girl who had something like happen, I think it would be removed on TikTok instantaneously, removed on Twitter instantaneously. I didn't get that privilege.

And I think it was just a different time in 2014. And people had little to no compassion for me specifically. And yeah, I sort of just got the sharp end of the stick that was like really difficult. And it was spreading on I remember specifically Twitter and Vine like a wildfire and just people not one person was like isn't this girl a minor isn't she really young like no one said that it was horrible okay also to just people that weren't obviously there had to read this like can you remember like what was being said

on the internet about you at that time well first of all of course so much endless like sexualization of just even grown men participating in the conversation of like oh i want to fuck her and she looks so hot and this and that and it's it's funny when you obviously when you're young you don't realize how young you really are And so I didn't at the time I knew it was inappropriate, but I wasn't as Shocked and disgusted as I am now, but I do remember Warning for the graphicness I remember there was a video that I saw and it's one of those things that like once you click it like it's you're like Sort of in this trance of

Like oh my god this guy had a had the Video one of them on his TV in his room And had like a sex doll and he was just Like having aggressive sex with this sex Doll while watching this video of me of A 14 year old little girl and it was a Grown man like visibly a grown adult and I remember just like first of all being reminded of being sexually abused as a child

and I was like I just I couldn't like take my eyes off of it because of how shocking it was that was also like the day I discovered what like being triggered was um and I was just it was I had so many feelings and emotions of like just like that image will never leave my head I was so disturbed by it and so afraid I felt so unsafe and just like scared and there was so many layers of like peeling the onion of that of how that made me feel and again like just no no one saying that it was wrong there's so many things to unpack yeah there's a lot you talk about in your memoir kind of how like all of these people are online they're calling you a whore they're slut shaming you they're talking about you you're a minor yeah i also vividly

remember the scene it like made me want to vomit of it could have been like a 45 year old man or like a full-grown man getting off to you again as a fucking minor yep and henry sit down come here Henry oh he goes back um you mentioned in the book that you were abused as a child and I thought it was really sad but like insightful to hear you talk about like these comments that were being said to you of course they were so hurtful but what people didn't understand was how fucking painful they were for you to be called a slut and a whore yeah and yet you are looking at yourself barely have ever been in a sexual relationship at this point in your life yeah can you go back a little to your childhood and and as much as you're comfortable sharing like how how did you like

handle what happened to you and like how old were you yeah I think that I never have spoken about anything like this up until now because I just didn't feel like there was a platform or a place to do it that felt appropriate and that's why I felt like the book was a great place to do it and I didn't want to go too much in detail because you can't really put a trigger warning on a book so I just wanted to sort of like allude to that um well okay so firstly yeah there was you know someone in in my childhood that was around me frequently that sort of would that I had an inappropriate relationship with very early on um I would say like probably I don't even know I would say maybe six seven I I't even know. I would say maybe six, seven. I'm not sure.

It sort of began. And I've also like I want to say like I've come to peace with this because I feel like in talking in person with some people about this, I've been able to create, I've been able to like join this community of women specifically that I feel really proud to like stand amongst genuinely so I remember feeling really dirty um after like all of anything I would endure whether it was like whatever it was and I just remember like feeling like I had done something wrong not being able to fully articulate what um I don't know I feel like I just look back and being someone who had gone through all of this so privately whereas like my own family didn't even know about this until I mean this might be news to like some people in my family but my like my mom I didn't

even tell my mom until years later who Who was the first person you told? Man, my ex-boyfriend was the first person I told. I think like ever. I sort of also blocked it out for a really long time and I didn't want to accept that it had happened. Dating that person and having like everyone on the online, you know, call me names like a slut or a whore and stuff when in reality um he was the first person who ever laid a finger on me consensually for a fact and it was really difficult to have people especially like people who would speculate

about you know all the other guys that I had in theory hooked up with when they were actually just my friends I never um hooked up with any of them I might have like kissed one or two of them but that was like the extent of it and people were just like oh she slept with all of them and she did this and I'm like whoa you guys don't even know it took me so long to like have sex with my first boyfriend because I was so afraid and like traumatized so it just it just goes to show that people really have no idea what the fuck they're talking about no I agree it's like there was such like this like sexualization of you on the internet like I remember doing research for this like looking up that first kind of public relationship that

you had and this kid had a following and you had a following again how old were you like 15 we started 15 okay and so it's like we have this incident which i do want to go back to because i do think sadly so many women actually experience revenge porn and blackmail but then you have this multiple moments where you're then dating this kid and there's people on the internet slut shaming you being like she's a whore she's fucked his friends again as a child having been abused then having the most violating experience with your nudes and then having people look at your like romantic relationship none of this is any accountability to any man in any of these situations it's you yeah you and your body and like the fixation on you it's so fucking sick and like it makes me so upset because again it's

like and i not back to the kid that released your nudes but it is kind of like where is any accountability for any men in this situation well in this society we don't hold men accountable it's like even have you been seeing this like whatever whenever there's like a girl who posts sexual things online they're like fatherless behavior i'm like why are you blaming the girl if she doesn't have a father why are we not blaming a father who walked out on their child potentially question marks it's full question marks it's just always like it's how i think it's it's just and i think there's things like that that we've become so accustomed to that we don't even realize these these are men who will comment like fatherless behavior and I'm like do

you not realize that you're like you're saying something horrible like the call is coming from within the fucking house what are we talking about why are you blaming a girl you're saying okay so you're you're saying that this girl turned out this way which you're again portraying is negative yet you're also addicted to fucking porn and like let's not even get into that so you're gonna you're gonna then blame and shame a girl who's posting with like her boobs looking whatever and say fatherless behavior but we're not going to talk about the fact that you're not discussing that maybe a parent actually did walk out on this little girl and that's horrible. Right. Like what the fuck are you saying? I'm sorry. No, no, no.

It's fine. No, I get upset too because it's like back to this whole exploitation of your life. I guess I didn't ask you like how did you tell your family when all this was going down? It's like another really fucked up story that like you actually won't even believe. Sometimes and I have to laugh at this point because I'm like my ex-boyfriend's snapchat got hacked and i'm on facetime with him and i'm like hey babe why are you typing to me on snapchat because he sends you a notification when you're typing and he's like i'm not and he goes and opens snapchat he's logged out our conversation about a week prior that we used to save all of our conversations like this even if they were ones that we wanted to delete we would save them whatever so he types to me a message

that says basically i hacked this person's snapchat and i know that you were r-worded and i'm gonna tell the entire internet if you don't follow me on instagram and like do x y and z and I was like what the fuck and I'd only told him this in person like a couple months prior but we were talking about it on Snapchat because something had happened I forget what obviously that upset me and I was just talking to him about like you know because this happened I feel really upset and da da da and I was now being threatened to release basically to to do things to shout this person out on instagram and to do things online to benefit this guy or else he was going to leak this information to the public so in that moment i was like well this isn't how i want my mom to

find out so i had to call my mom and be like hey something might end up on the internet that i think you should know yeah that's why i just laugh because i'm like madison it's just crazy i know and and that unreal sorry to confirm that was over the nudes or the sexual abuse when you were younger no that was yeah that was over the sexual abuse when i was younger was literally someone threatening to leak it online and my my mother had no idea that i ever endured any of that so i literally had to call her on the phone what the fuck i just know I get what you mean though you almost have to like laugh through it because I obviously know I've cried enough yes I've cried enough yeah my whole like past 10 years have been not even my past 24 years have been filled with tears that I'm like I'm at the point where I've just accepted things and I'm just like I feel like I've made

lemonade out of lemons and I feel like I'm a good person and I feel like in a fucked up way all of these experiences have shaped me to be better that I'm like I also want to say that like there's there's I think that because I'm coming across like light-hearted about this I obviously want to say that this is something with like extensive therapy that I've been able to have the perspective of like I do believe I don't want to say everything happens for a reason because the biggest thing I say in my book is that just because I endured these things and turned out okay and I was able to turn these things into a in the most fucked up way a positive it doesn't mean I should have had to go through them and that's been the biggest thing with therapy that I've learned is being able to tell

myself like you didn't deserve these things and just because you've done just because you've shouldered them gracefully and you've been able to like survive doesn't mean you should have gone through them just because you're able to talk about it and hopefully help other people does not fucking mean that anyone nor myself should have gone through these things so that's something that i've been able to just like give myself so i want anyone watching or listening to know that i'm at peace with these things but i still like literally two nights ago i was so triggered and so upset about something that happened that I like was dissociating and didn't know where I was and was like very afraid and felt like a little girl again like I have

a lot of issues still that I'm very much so working through so I don't want people to think I'm just like haha okay about it I just can't um yeah I just I just can't like break down and cry about it every time because I'm just at a place where i'm like you know it yeah it is it sort of says what it is what you don't have to tell me you can be like next but like can you do you mind sharing like what is it that would trigger you like the other day like what makes you dissociate and go into a different place yeah there's a few things um i'm really petrified of the dark which i have a hard time saying publicly because i feel like the paranoia i have also horrible paranoia which as you can see why um the paranoia and me think someone's gonna purposely do that to me and put me in a dark room

or a dark place and just like want to see me suffer um so that's like why i've never really talked about it but i also discussed in the book like on tour we'll have the obviously we have blackouts after every song i had to do like submersion therapy almost where i was like i had to like work myself up to going from like a 0.5 second blackout to a three second blackout and being able to sort of be okay in those moments and I had to literally like submerse myself in it and like get through that and that was something I worked on with my therapist before I went on tour um and now I have this like simple yet effective thing where like I just I like sort of do this and it helps like ground me it's weird um and I also people don't really see but when I do have a blackout there

will be people on both sides of the stage With some form of light That just helps remind me where I am Because I can just get like lost in it And sometimes I'll feel like I'm in You know the place that I was abused and whatnot So I just need something to kind of ground me Whether it's like okay I'm here

I'm at my show I hear my fans screaming I'm okay Or like looking to the side of the stage And seeing like there's a There's one song I have called Sour Times that has like quite a long blackout at the beginning at my concert. And if you look at videos, you'll sort of always see me looking off to the left or right at my dancers because if I know people are there, I'm okay. Yeah. But I have such an amazing what's helped me so much is I have such amazing friends and family and relationships with people that like, for example, when I go to like Universal,

if I'm in a dark ride, someone will just hold my hand and be like, I'm here with you and it's okay. And it's so nice. And to have people that just sort of don't make it like, oh, she's so dramatic or she doesn't, because I'm not going to also go into depth and explain to everyone what happened or, hey, just letting everyone know I'm really scared of the dark and don't ask why. It's just not something I care to everyone what happened or hey just let letting everyone know I'm really scared of the dark and don't ask why it's just not something I care to really make public or talk about so it's really nice when I have someone who's able to just

yeah be like hey I'm here and you're good one I appreciate and like we are like talking like in bits like people have to go read your book because like you did such an incredible job bringing us through everything you've been through but the amount of women that have had some type of sexual violence or sexual abuse like is there anything that has specifically helped you cope that you could share with people that are also kind of in this like really deep healing journey right now and trying to find a way to keep going I mean there's so many things I can say I think that there's yeah there's like endless things I can talk about I think everyone's also situation is very specific to them so it's hard to give like a marginalized like this helped me

I know that like setting boundaries it sounds vague but that's been super huge for me is just being able to be like hey i'm uncomfortable with the topic of discussion here like i don't want to be in this room or that person makes me uncomfortable like just little things like that and being able to i always say be your own best friend and look out for yourself the same way you would look out for your best friend um is really helpful and i think just being patient it took me years and years to be able to even discuss this like i think that anyone who's a fan of mine is going to be like what we had no idea and i've been very open and candid about a lot of things that i've gone through um but this has never been something that i've been ready to

talk about and yeah it's just i don't know it's all it's all a journey there's no right answer there's nothing that anyone could say to like make it okay or go away and I think just yeah I don't know hopefully like wishing anyone who's listening to find peace someday it's it's really hard and it's I don't know there's there's no there's literally nothing I can say it's like very difficult yeah you mentioned while you were talking about everything with what happened with the nudes which I think is like very fucking important to talk about is people behind computer screens have fucking forgotten on their little fake accounts or even their main accounts if they are like shameless literally they have like we have forgotten even if you're

posting something that's like funny and then you're like was that insensitive we have forgotten because social media has completely desensitized us how hurtful things can be and it there is not even like enough hours in the day for us to have this conversation but you just said casually you were like and that also led me to attempting to take my own life and like and I I just want to talk about that for a minute because it's like it's so fucking real you fucking lived it and you can talk about it but it's like we have to talk about it because like people need to fucking realize what their words can do. And so you sitting there by yourself as a minor going through this shit like it's so

sick. Like can you try to articulate and it's not your job to like write the wrongs of people but maybe there's someone listening that will like never write a negative comment again because like you're someone sitting here that has endured so much online bullying like where do where do you go when those type of comments come on your feed and come on your posts I think that it's something that I still unfortunately struggle with which should speak volumes to anyone out there who you know I don't want to say is a hater but is a hater not only to me to anyone it's been over 10 years and I still have not gotten used to it I recently like walked

a carpet and people just had like a million negative things to say about like my body and like how I looked and it was like really hurtful and I had a panic attack about it and so I think again it's something that you never get used to I was raised because I was raised in the industry to be told and to tell people it doesn't affect you and you're strong. And it was sort of and it was it was done with the right intention, I believe, of. If you want to be a good role model for your fans and let them think that you're the strong individual that doesn't let things get to them, which is what I want my fans to think and people who look up to me whatever um but it felt so disingenuous to me and i was like it does get to me though and i spend every night crying my eyes out because people are so vicious that i don't feel right when an interviewer is like how do you deal with hate i'm like it doesn't affect me it's fine i was like this needs to be something that I'm honest about. So I just stopped with that

nonsense because I felt like it was really silly. And I felt like I owed it to people to know that their words hurt. And even if that's honestly what they wanted to hear, because some of them probably got satisfaction hearing that I was affected by their words. But it's important. I think it's never going to end end I think people should know that your words have power I think that people's digital footprints should be more serious that say things like kill yourself to people and you know there's also people who I've spoken to who haven't ever dealt with it who are like just turn your phone off why do you even read it I'm like it's not that simple and especially someone like me who has been unfortunately scrolling and scrolling through

hate comments since I was 12 years old it's become like part of my nature to seek out what people have to say about me and it's been something because I'm also just like being completely genuine I'm someone who does care about what people think about me like I pride myself on being a kind individual who has a good heart that like wants to make people feel good I I think that that's what life is about and I want people to be happy when they're around me and i whatever the fuck it is like that's something that's really important to me and has been deeply ingrained in me as a human being so when i read tens of thousands of comments of people saying things that i know are so far from the truth about me and my character it bothers me and I can't help but look and I can't help but be upset by it and it sucks and I wish I didn't care but I do yeah that was something in

your book that I was like fuck this is dark because it was like you were like at that age at 15 14 when those were released you were like I was using all of my money to have this person try to get them off the internet but you were personally going through each website each forum getting the link and sending them to this guy so you are having to watch the man jerking off fucking the doll everything you were seeing everything everything and to have that level of violation to then paranoia and then to have to read every fucking comment like and looking like what do they say what do they say I don't think under people understand like I understand it's like oh what was you you choose this life if there was a fucking forum I want

everyone to pause for a minute if there was a forum that you knew you're sitting at home right now if you knew someone was writing things about you 10 out of 10 times you're fucking clicking well it's funny because I'll have like friends of mine who will say like similar things of like well you know you sort of like chose this and if you can't handle it you shouldn't be in your position I'm like well why does being in my position mean I have to endure abuse you talked about this red carpet moment and I feel like there's so many people that are so fucking fascinated by your looks and your body and what you are doing and people have so much to say about it it's like fuck you you look perfect fuck you you're setting an unrealistic beauty standard there's all these

people but I'm like okay let's pause for five seconds about like what anyone else fucking fucking things how do you feel about your body image and your sexuality now i think that it's it's very hard i mean it was something that was scrutinized publicly for so long but it's again it goes into i think being a woman and people objectifying you and looking at you as just a pretty face and nothing more and if you ask a man to name three women who inspire him like he probably is going to have a very difficult time doing so and obviously there are some men who can there are a lot of men who can't and I think that society in general objectifies women and makes them to be not talented enough not smart enough not good enough not articulate enough and I just I don't know I feel like it does sort of like feed into all of

it I feel like it's interlocked in this weird misogynistic way and I don't know no I I completely agree I think like listening to everything that you've said reading your memoir like it feels really disheartening of like the lack of protection you had as a young girl the exploitation the violation and there's this like sense of entitlement that men have over women and our bodies and we essentially come into this world and it almost feels like we have no autonomy over our bodies. None. Look at the fucking abortion issue we just dealt with. Like it is really sad. And I think and you don't have to comment on this, but like it's the truth. Then there's a different level also for like a very attractive woman.

Like we just watched the Pamela Anderson doc. And it's like the world also believes. Listen, the world believes that if you're a pretty woman like they're entitled to look and and get off to and stare at your body and it's so dehumanizing and it is also completely stripping you of your ability to feel like you're going to be seen and heard for what you've been through and it is like i fucking hate everyone it's really difficult it's like i want to like scream when i have this conversation because it's like all the time all hours of the day it's it's it's awful i just don't think that men ever get that same level of like objectification of like you're just something

pretty to look at and i'm like but i feel like i have a lot to show that isn't just that it's always the i'm like i have a platinum single right the fuck thank you it's like oh god she seems angry i am i am angry literally generational and we're two white women sitting here so it's like the fucking layers that go underneath it of like women minorities underprivileged like it's never ending it's never ending so everyone that has a penis listening to this just fucking hear us a little bit today seriously in your memoir you write and I just think it's important to read this because a lot of what we've talked about this is an interesting summation of how you wrote this you said it feels like my entire life's journey thus far has been a perfectly crafted cocktail of situations that

landed me at this borderline personality diagnosis as if my biography could be written and titled how to give someone bpd a step-by-step guide what do you want people to understand from you writing that i think that when i read you know when you read something about like your astrological sign you're like that's so me I feel like when I first discovered not only what BPD was but how one can become diagnosed with it or what the things that have to sort of happen to a young developing mind in order to whatever I literally was like this this is feel scripted it felt it felt humorous to me because i was like this is just such a recipe for disaster honestly and i just i knew i knew that it

was the right diagnosis for me when i when i was diagnosed with it because of course it just felt so right but i just yeah i couldn't it just felt like i was like was this the goal in my life was for people to like give me this disorder? I don't understand it. So, yeah, I don't I don't know. It's it's very it's very strange. I mean, there's so many different stigmas around so many different mental health disorders or, you know, things people are going through. But like specifically with BPD, I think there's such a lack of education around this topic. And I do appreciate you saying like how to give someone BPD, like not that any mental health disorder is

anyone's fault, but this is not something you were born with. Like this happened to you. Yeah, it develops. And it develops through trauma and childhood. And so like, I appreciate you writing this because it's like, let's have a little fucking empathy and compassion when someone says that they are struggling or they have BPD like that's actually such a great way to start a conversation with someone of like I'm here for you like I want to listen to you I want to understand you I want to understand what you've been through like you're not a bad fucking person you're a wonderful person with a great heart and you had a lot of fucking shit happen to you but like I just felt like the way that you wrote it

people don't understand it and I really appreciated the way that you said that of like how to give someone it like this shit happened to you but you're alive and you're here and you've like powered through thankfully yeah and it's it's I really appreciate you saying that it's just hard to it's hard to like think about my younger self sometimes I get really emotional about it because I just feel like I of course I'm really grateful for the place that I'm in and I'm really grateful for like the insight that I've been given and all of that stuff but I just I think about my younger self who it just I don't, yeah, there was so many times where it felt like the only way out was to end it, and I just, I don't know, I just feel like I am grateful for sure

for everything, because I feel like I wouldn't be the person I am today if literally everything didn't happen, but it's hard to come to terms with a lot of these things and I it's hard to not feel bitter I think towards people because and that's the biggest thing that like my therapist who's amazing always says to me and she's like I'm so glad that you've never turned cold to people and you're still like warm and fuzzy and friendly and you want to be friends with everyone and you still have like faith in people but it's a lot it's hard it's a hard journey I'm happy I read the book because I am too again you there's so many good things in your life and there's really hard moments and you write about a lot of heavy stuff in here about like multiple times thinking about or trying to take your life yeah and in the summer of 2019 you wrote about how it was like

the best part of your career you were at a career high but like personally you had never been lower yeah what were you going through that was the year that I started to really face everything that had happened to me in my younger years whether it's like coming to terms that so many people have the wrong idea of me or the sexual abuse or people have naked pictures of me. There were so many things that I felt like were just like really catching up with me. I also that was the age that I started to feel a lot of guilt around my little brother because I feel like I sort of uprooted and changed his life without him having any say over it and I still feel guilt surrounding that to this day because I know how it was to get my childhood sort of taken from me in ways that he didn't even have a choice it was like you're just along for the ride and I feel so sorry for that to this day um so that was a lot and I had a lot of things just like really really weighing on me

heavily for so long and I just felt like I, I just felt like also nothing would ever change. I felt like I would live in this sort of like begging to be seen place for the rest of my life. I was like, I'm never, no one's ever gonna know me. And I'm never gonna have a real friendship. And I'm always gonna be like, betrayed or like blackmailed and just so many endless things I'm also I'm never going to be a successful artist there was so many things weighing on me that I really I started self-harming again which I had been clean for a while and so that was again something that was like oh you're weak and you did the wrong thing and whatever so I just felt like it was something I'd been thinking about for a really long time I also always said to people and this is like horrible and dark but probably from like starting at like 15 I would always tell

people because you know we have this conversation people do you have any idea like how you think you're gonna die I would always say I know I'm gonna die from suicide I know and now that makes me so sad because I just think about that like child who was just hurting and felt like she was screaming into a void all the time and no one cared to listen and that just makes me really sad because I just think about that like child who was just hurting and felt like she was screaming into a void all the time and no one cared to listen and that just makes me really sad and I wish I can hug her I thought that everyone on the fucking face of this earth would have rathered me dead and so I just I I did attempt um twice um and yeah I'm really grateful that I was obviously unsuccessful, but I think people need to understand that like, it's really serious and not something to joke about. And I just,

like my life was almost over. Like I almost died. I almost was dead because of all of this. And it's a lot to comprehend. It's a lot for me to think about. It's a lot for me to accept that people made me feel that way. People kicked me while I was down and just like did not give a fuck, did not look at me as human at all. I would think about the tweets that would be posted the next day. People like laughing and making fun of the fact that I was dead. And I knew it would happen.

That was the sickest part was like I still know to this day that if it happened, people would joke about it because I've seen people joke about the most horrible things ever online. And I think it all just ties back into the fact of like, I just hope for a day of like people having empathy and people not judging each other and being able to be kind and loving. But I still like I definitely don't feel like I have this like suicidal ideation thing in me anymore. But I still have really really horrible dark days like to this fucking day that i just feel defeated and i just there's

so much grieving i do for my younger self and there's so much like i i am a bit angry a little towards the internet in some ways i feel like i never got an apology from a lot of people. I don't know. I feel like I'm still also like made fun of all the time. I'll talk in a video and people will be like, she's so cringy and embarrassing. Yeah, like does it make you nervous? I never want to talk ever again.

No, but I'm wondering like, will you have anxiety before this comes out? I'm like already like, can we restart? Like literally. Madison, stop. No, it's how I am. but that is why I do appreciate podcasting because I'm like I wish people were just nice it's like so it's so crazy that's like a huge ask of people can you just be nice and like not like we're going through it like listen to what you're going through I'm in pain

it's just too much you are currently in a relationship we don't need to talk about your relationship but I do want to know about you in relationships dealing with everything that you're going through and it seems like again you said 2019 was how when you kind of really started to break in to everything that happened to you and I also want to say like people that are going to start therapy like it is a motherfucker at first to open up Pandora's box and be like yeah whoa yeah but when you finally even get a little bit on that other side of like it's the best it's the best and you find a reason to live and you find like a perspective that you could have never had when you're in a relationship and you're going through all this, like how does having a partner

and having to have someone in your life and be, you know, in this dynamic where you have to be not selfish all the time and not focusing on yourself, like how does that affect your mental health of being in a relationship while you're going through this mental health journey? I think there's two sides of the coin. I think on side A, I recognize that I've become definitely very codependent. I've had three now long-term relationships in my life back to back. I've like really never been single. I've just been like in very serious relationships. I think that is because of my deep-rooted abandonment issues and attachment style and whatever. And I am working through that. but I think on the other side it's

been amazing and I feel like I've been able to obviously breakups are really hard but I think in all three of my relationships I look back and I feel you know a lot of support at times from those people and especially in my current one like I feel yeah supported and I feel like taken care of in in a way that i can break down and like i have someone to lean on and i i think it's important what's a red flag in dating that you used to ignore that you would now if you saw it you would like run the other direction like you used to put up with but you're like nope not now bitch um there's a lot okay first being when guys i know this is so basic but when guys say like my ex-girlfriend is so crazy,

I'm like, oh, so you were horrible and you don't want to be accountable is what you're trying to say. Cool. So that I don't like at all. I feel like also it's just, it's just like,

you can't convince me that your ex-girlfriend was just like crazy for no reason. Like you definitely caused her to be that way. So I don't really give a fuck what you have to say about yourself it's your fault it just drives me insane and i've heard people say it and it won't even be like forget red flag and dating like if if i'm in a room of boys and they're like talking about even a girl they like slept with in a negative way i'm like twitching i'm sitting there like are you fucking joking right now who raised you

but yeah i hate i especially can't handle it in a guy who's like my crazy ex-girlfriend. I'm like, sir. But other than that, I think that someone who like, oof, I don't know. There's so many things I can say. I think hygiene is like huge. Brush your teeth, please. I'm begging you. Please brush your teeth. We just went from like crazy actually

like hygiene alex like it is through your hair it's been three weeks please like i'm begging you i'm literally begging i'm dead how would i that's the last thing i thought you would say it's true please please okay hygiene and when someone says their hygiene and when someone says their ex-girlfriend is crazy i don't believe you for a fucking second something that i love to do on call her daddy is like if there are rumors or if there have been like anything kind of out there that people are like speculating i'm like let's just get to the bottom of it. People are so fucking confused. Like this video came out that Justin posted of you.

And there's so much controversy on the internet of like, you may have had connections to him and people before. And I'm like, who cares if that's the case? Like in any way, shape or form, did you have or anyone in your family or anyone know anyone in Justin's camp and it wasn't like a random thing that he stumbled upon you on YouTube definitely no correlation to Justin I was Justin's biggest biggest fan let me make that very abundantly clear he was my lock screen when I met Scooter I was like crying my eyes out

screaming when Scooter played me boyfriend the day that he signed me like I there's a lot of things but all I like at this point like the truth is all that I really care to talk about because I think that it just doesn't matter at this point it's 10 years ago so literally to break it down quite simply my mom and dad have no music industry correlation my mom was an interior designer. My dad was a builder. Like it just was not part of our life. The only person that my mom knew as I was younger that sort of had an in with those people was a guy who owns Catch, like the restaurants.

Got it. Which for those of you who don't know, are like LA, New York hotspot restaurants. And she sort of knew him. And she, being a proud mom, posted my YouTube video to her Facebook and was texting all her friends like you know who who could get my daughter like a audition somewhere like she

my dream was to be on broadway that was like my number one dream so she was like who can help my daughter whatever so she messaged this guy mark and was like do you know anyone who maybe would want to like i don't even know like we didn't even know at the time like what the verbiage was or what the goal was it was more so just like clearly i was a kid who loved to sing and what can we do with this people also have this idea that my mom knew Scooter personally because there's a picture that this is also I have to again contextualize peak of me being like hated online when I was like 16 years old this rumor began to spread and there's a picture of some woman with Scooter when in like college and people are like this is Madison's mom and Scooter Braun in college my mom's like 15 years older than

Scooter mind you and also like we know it's just that's just not true and at this point I would just say yeah that he she did people have this idea that like you can buy your way like I my dad like wrote him a check and was like sign my daughter you know how many kids would be famous yeah like i just it's just not it's just not true and it's it's quite silly and i think that obviously also what's scooter braun who had justin bieber as his artist you think he really like needed to sign little madison beer from long island like it also didn't work out so like it wasn't like you know so i just um yeah so basically to make a long story short Mark ended up connecting us with Scooter who then showed to Justin and that's how it all happened and it was just quite simple and it was all very cool for me and very exciting. 12 year old me I was just excited that

Justin Bieber watched one of my videos. Right also it's not like anyone was like Justin you have to post this. No no. Clearly he had to have liked it to post it he I think felt passionate about me when I was younger because that's how he was discovered so I think that I don't know I wasn't in the room but potentially when Scooter showed it to him he was like yeah I want to get involved with this I feel like I remember also back in the day seeing Justin post like a lot of people he would do stuff like that all because that's how he was getting discovered and I appreciate you clarifying and I know there are some people watching that are like what the fuck is going on the point is is there was a conspiracy there was literally it's crazy the amount of

rumors about you on the internet i know why do you think that is firstly i think i got in this very young i think that like it's been 11 12 years of me being on social media so of course throughout the years like as I've grown into it the human form like I'm sure that I've made mistakes or said things or done things like any person would in in my shoes that maybe I look back and I'm not proud of but I don't I can't give you an answer as to why there's so many people that literally make things up about me um or are just specifically mean to me i feel like i've been a victim of like just no empathy people are just mean and vicious and will like make fun of me and not give me any benefit of the doubt or assume that i'm a liar and it's really hard um but i don't know the reason

and i don't think that i'm at a place where i blame myself anymore because i used to be like oh it has to be something it has to be me and i'm like I didn't I didn't do anything to these people and I don't think that's true I feel like if I can take a crack at it I'm like I feel like one the the relationship to Justin we don't need to get into it but anyone that has any like touching of that man near him. Yeah. If you're a woman and you're not a certain woman, you're dead. And I think naturally when you're young and you're on the Internet, people get so fixated and obsessed with that shit that it's like, we're riding to the grave with you, Madison.

Even if we're bullying you, like they just become obsessed with your life from day one. And then it's like they feel like they know you because they've watched you quite literally mature from a girl to a woman and there's like some weird fucking shit for sure you're so young we've said you've been in the industry for 11 years what made you want to write a memoir at 24 i know and i feel like it's very young and i've seen a lot of people online be like what the hell and i'm like that's kind of the point though and i feel like it should show people how much i've been through at 24 to be able to even write this in the first place but I don't know I just think like I said earlier there's so much I wanted to say

for so long that I just didn't feel was appropriate anywhere but a book format of some kind I didn't feel like a teary-eyed Instagram post would really do it justice I didn't feel like coming on here for the first time and like being this the first time I ever really said things was I just wanted it to be like me telling my story without anyone else, no strings attached. And I feel good about it. And I feel like it's definitely peculiar that someone so young is like writing a memoir. But I think it's bigger than just a memoir. It's more of like, I guess, a tell all and just sort of me. And the reason it's called the half of it is because I want people to understand that obviously just because you know now this you still only know the half of it and we have so much more to go like I have so much more life to live and it's

really just also about like everyone viewing each other as human and being like wait we're literally all trying and it's everyone's first time here that I don't really think that we deserve to scrutinize each other and be mean and make fun of each other and think everyone's a liar and just just put like people should be in my eyes innocent until proven guilty not vice versa and I just I don't know I just hope this book's book makes some people a little more empathetic towards each other and like not to spoil the ending but the last line in the book is like now that you've read my story I hope you realize that everyone has a story you just haven't read yet and that's the truth and it's just the reality of life and i think

there's so many people who don't go through life with that perspective and i think looking at everyone as someone's child as a probably wounded kid we've all been through shit and i just not to sound too preachy but like just be nice and just love each other and I don't know it's not preachy I fucking love the last line of the book because again going back to the beginning of the interview when I was like dude like you look at someone's social media you look at your social media you're so fucking beautiful you look like you have your life together you are on tour like you're singing you have albums like're thriving. Like people don't know the half of it. And it's like if we sit down and we take this as to heart of like now next time you open

your phone and you're someone that's a mean person. No, but you're 100% right. And I think that it's just so important. And I think people really forget that. And it's such a crucial part of this life. And I think that it's something that like we all can do better at is. And again, I feel like it as much as I would love to be on social media, like, guys, this is something that's happened to me.

I don't feel like all my followers, A, give a shit. Yeah. Let alone B, would care. So I'm like, I just feel like there's no point in. And this is for me. He is so cute. It's really only for me. Like, I think there's other people who feel differently and do feel

like maybe I can use my platform and be more open and honest but I just I just don't feel like that audience. It's not the appropriate space sometimes. Exactly and that's how I feel. When I like do like my tour and I have at the beginning of tour I have Q&A's. I talk to my fans in the most honest vulnerable way I can and we have such a deep personal connection that like to me those are the appropriate spaces. It way I can. And we have such a deep personal connection that like, to me, those are the appropriate spaces.

It's not, it's just not for like my Instagram. Yes. In a few weeks, you're going on a much different tour than you're used to. You're not going to be singing. You're going on a book tour. What are you looking forward to from this book tour? I'm excited. I really like a lot of my experiences I've had so far in this crazy time and world has have been like my I write about this experience in my book about like holding hands with a stranger

and like you know that you know you're both going through something beautiful and emotional when like the first thing you do is like hold hands and have this really true human connection. There's been so many instances like that that i really look back on i'm like what an amazing life i've had and what a privileged position am i in to be so lucky to like have these deep connections with utter strangers through music and through vulnerability hopefully through this book like that's such a beautiful awesome thing and i and i and i do and i and obviously in the book you'll read that like it comes to this sort of ending of like, I definitely made the right choice.

And like the answer is yes. And moral of the whole story of like all these fucked up things have happened is like, I'm still so grateful for all of it. And I wouldn't trade my position for the world i just hope that me as a singular individual can make some sort of a positive impact on people i hope people listen to this podcast and say like oh maybe i shouldn't comment that this girl looks ugly in this video because why the fuck should i or like maybe i should hold the door for someone because i never know what kind of day they had like i just think i want i just want so cheesy the world to

be a bit of a better place and I want people to be nicer to each other and I think that this book is really about that specifically of just like be empathetic I can't thank you enough for coming on because I feel like there's like again there's so many fucking things on the internet about you and rumors and gossip and mean things it's like it's really fucking nice that you put this into a book that is like humanizes you and gives us all a chance to get to know you better and I also really appreciate you sitting down with me and talking about topics that I know are very fucking sensitive and personal to you but in a strange way like I know so many people are going to relate to you and connect with you and

feel like I can go another fucking day because like I hope look she's sitting here still and like there's more to her story and there's more to come and yeah hopefully it's going to be positive and there's going to be things that come from it but I also agree I hope people take from this like let's be more compassionate because we have no fucking idea what anyone is going through and they shouldn't have to put their life out there 24 7 and to explain why you should be nice to people definitely not agreed thank you for coming on madison it was truly a pleasure not coming i'm at your house thank you for having me thanks for coming to my house next guest thank you