If you are in crisis, please call 988 or visit suicidepreventionlifeline.org. You are not alone.
On the surface, contemporary Christian singer Mandisa epitomized success. She became a musical star after her appearance on “American Idol” in 2006 and won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Christian Album in 2014.
But those who read her interviews or followed her on social media knew she struggled with low self-esteem, weight issues and depression. In 2017 she told ABC News that she had contemplated suicide. In her 2022 memoir, “Out of the Dark,” she admitted that she had been raped, and that her suicidal thoughts were in part due to the death of a close friend who had breast cancer.
Mandisa—whose full name was Mandisa Lynn Hundley—was found dead in her home in Nashville, Tennessee, last Thursday, April 18. She was only 47. Police are still investigating, and a cause of death has not been announced. But in a video she posted a few days before she died, Mandisa candidly talked about her emotional battles, admitting she was “in a season of lament” because another close friend had died.
“There is a spirit of heaviness that is trying to overtake us,” she said. “I’m not great, but I have the joy of the Lord.”
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Many fans who watched her message, originally posted on Facebook, wondered if Mandisa took her own life. She seemed to be forcing herself to smile, yet she urged people who were struggling with anxiety or dark thoughts to read her seven-day devotional about depression on the YouVersion Bible app.
There’s no question that the singer’s uplifting music flowed out of a life of pain. She often told fans she wanted to be married. She was self-conscious about her hair and her weight—and “American Idol” judge Simon Cowell didn’t help when he made cruel comments about her size.
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