Harry Styles has said he feels “the most alive you can be” after reluctantly taking up therapy five years ago.
In a new interview with Better Homes & Gardens, of which he is the June cover star, The “As It Was” singer said he always thought of therapy as a music industry cliché, and that taking it up “meant that you were broken”.
“I wanted to be the one who could say I didn’t need it,” he explained.
Sharing how his perception has since changed, Styles said therapy sessions allowed him to “open up rooms in himself”.
“I think that accepting living, being happy, hurting in the extremes, that is the most alive you can be,” he said. “Losing it crying, losing it laughing – there’s no way, I don’t think, to feel more alive than that.”
Styles, who recently headlined Coachella and is set to release his third studio album, Harry’s House, on 20 May, said the quietness of the Covid-19 pandemic forced him to deal with difficult emotions which he could usually avoid with his busy schedule.
“Whether it was with friends or people I was dating, I was always gone before it got to the point of having to have any difficult conversations,” he said.
It was also a period of self-reflection, with Styles realising that his days on The X Factor and in One Direction had made him care deeply about being likable.
“In lockdown, I started processing a lot of stuff that happened when I was in the band...to get people to engage with you, to like you.”
This also impacted his sexuality as a teenager. He felt “ashamed” of having sex, because he didn’t want the media to disclose his relationships.
“For a long time, it felt like the only thing that was mine was my sex life. I felt so ashamed about it, ashamed at the idea of people even knowing that I was having sex, let alone who with,” he said.
“At the time, there were still the kiss-and-tell things. Working out who I could trust was stressful,” Styles said.
“But I think I got to a place where I was like, why do I feel ashamed? I’m a 26-year-old man who’s single; it’s like, yes, I have sex.”
