Mental Health Matters: Megan Thee Stallion’s Call to Check on Your Friends

Megan Thee Stallion is urging you to check on your friends. The rapper, whose offstage name is Megan Pete, is part of a new public service announcement called Seize the Awkward, a national campaign to encourage young people to talk to friends about mental health. “It’s important that we regularly check in on our friends and family and make sure to show empathy, encouragement and love when they’re struggling,” she said in a statement. “A strong support system can make a powerful difference in someone’s life.” Megan Thee Stallion’s involvement in the campaign may help reduce mental health stigma, Dr. Broderick Sawyer, a clinical psychologist in Louisville, Ky., tells CNN. She is “finally making healing look as cool as it should be,” Sawyer says, adding that her involvement “is forcing the conversation to go mainstream. “Many centralizing platforms just have resources that pretend mental health is one-size-fits-all, that everyone is the same,” Sawyer says. “The truth is that people have wildly different experiences depending on their identities, and types of sociopolitical oppression they go through.” Robert Gebbia, CEO of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, told CNN that Pete’s involvement may feel more relatable as she works to reach young,...