Rachel Maddow is known for her perennially sunny attitude on-air, but in the latest issue of Rolling Stone, the MSNBC host talked about her darker moods, which she said can sometimes sink into depression.
The profile by Ben Wallace-Wells is partially built around Maddow's infamous "Meet the Press" argument with GOP strategist Alex Castellanos about gender pay equity. That was about as angry as viewers have ever seen her get, and it was hardly off-the-charts anger.
However, Maddow told Wells that just because viewers might not see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
"I am as rage-filled as the next guy," she said. Talking about a show she didn't like, she added, "Why do I still have one-star shows? It's me - failure."
She then said she suffers from "cyclical depression." It's something she's talked about before, but that has not received much public attention.
"One of the manifestations of depression for me is that I lose my will," she told Wells. And I thereby lose my ability to focus ... if I'm not depressed and I'm on and I can focus and I can think through something hard and without interruption and without existential emptiness that comes from depression, that gives me - not mania. But I exalt. I exalt in not being depressed."
Maddow elaborated on the subject in an April interview with Terry Gross. She said that she has wrestled with bouts of depression since she was 11 or 12, and that she can sometimes lose her sense of smell when they take over.
"Coping with depression is something that is part of the everyday way that I live and have lived for as long as I can remember," she said. "When you are depressed, it's like the rest of the world is the mother ship, and you're out there on a little pod and your line gets cut and you don't connect with anything. You sort of disappear."
Read the full Rolling Stone profile here.
Related
Before You Go
