Oliver Anthony Opens Up to Joe Rogan About Suicide Fears: ‘I Really Thought I Was Going to Die’

Controversial country star Oliver Anthony has been the internet's main character over the past few weeks, topping the Billboard Hot 100 after going viral earlier this month. Today, he appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience, where he spoke about American politics, his newfound fame, poverty, pornography and more. During the two-and-a-half-hour conversation, Anthony also opened up about his struggles with mental health, saying at one point, "I really thought I was going to die."

Anthony said his anxiety was leading to "cardiovascular symptoms" like chest pains and feeling "very disassociated from my reality." He went on, "Suicide's a weird thing because — and I can't speak for everybody, but for me — it wasn't that I ever wanted to kill myself, like I knew I wanted to keep trying to fight and get out of whatever it is I was in, but it was almost like, at some point I thought I was gonna do it almost as a fight-or-flight response, that I couldn't escape whatever it is that I was in and that was eventually going to be my only way out."

Suicidal ideation was one of the drivers pushing Anthony to upload his music: "That was one of the things that compelled me to throw a lot of these videos up just on my phone." He continued, "I wanted to get all that up, though, because I really didn't know if I was going to be around to do it." Anthony admitted he was "taking aspirin every day" and said, "I thought I was going to have a heart attack ... I was just trying to leave them out for the world in case‚ I guess either in case I died from a heart attack or, like ... I figured that was the only thing I had that was worth anything."

He's found solace in proverbs following this difficult period. "I haven't been in a church in 10 years and I'm not saying I'd ever go back into one again," he said earlier in the interview. "But there's a lot of truth in those words. It's real life advice that I work toward every day applying in my own life."