‘I Chose to Hurt Myself & Self-Sabotage’

Lola Young‘s recent rough patch reached a very public high point when she collapsed on stage at the All Things Go festival last year — but she hasn’t opened up about what happened behind the scenes. Until now.

In a Rolling Stone cover story published Wednesday (March 11), the British singer-songwriter recalled the turmoil of her life leading up to her onstage fall, which she sees now as her “breaking point.” As her star continued to rise with breakout Billboard Hot 100 hit “Messy,” Young’s increasingly busy schedule — filled with interviews, album promo, etc. — made it more and more difficult for her to manage her cocaine dependency and schizoaffective disorder, both of which she’s spoken about in the past.

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“You want to say yes to everything because everything’s on the table, but then you also have to balance that with your mental health, and I’ve been super open about my mental-health condition that I suffer from,” Young said. “When somebody is going through addiction, or struggling in any capacity, it’s hard to know how much a person can do … I chose to hurt myself and self-sabotage, and I also chose to get onstage and perform.”

In August 2025, The New York Times interviewed Young and reported that she had spent time in a treatment facility for substance issues in November 2024, and then again in the summer of 2025 after a relapse. The musician’s collapse at All Things Go took place the month after the article came out, leading Young to tell fans she would be “going away for a while” to “work on myself.”

She once again entered a treatment facility, this time spending two months on “lockdown” without her phone and incorporating therapy into her addiction program. Young now attends Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and has a sponsor.

Today, the vocalist says she’s “grateful” that everything happened the way it did, because it pushed her to work on herself and “be better” for her fans. “There was a bunch of hate, but you know what? F–k it,” she adds of putting her music career on pause. “It was a decision, like I said, that I had to make, and it was sad that I had to do that. What else was I going to do, die? That was the reality of where my addiction was heading.”

She also said she feels grateful for fellow stars such as good friend Elton John, Katy Perry, Charli xcx, Kesha and Lady Gaga for reaching out to her when she was struggling. “That was pretty mad,” Young told the publication. “And that made me feel safer.”

Since her recovery, Young has returned to the spotlight, performing at the Grammys in February, where she got her cinematic comeback moment during the ceremony when she won best pop solo performance for “Messy.”

See Young on the cover of Rolling Stone below.

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