Lenard Larry McKelvey, commonly known as, Charlamagne Tha God, is an American media personality. His leading brand is centered on being a radio host, television personality, and author. Enter February 2022, and he can add a philanthropist to his monikers list.
This year’s Black History Month welcomes the champion Charlamagne. He has teamed together with publication VeryWell and is opening up about his own mental health and rallying the support of and for mental health and wellness through therapy with a primary focus on Black Americans.
Charlemagne shares with us in his explanation for why he is rallying so hard now. “You can’t heal what you don’t reveal. I would be very disingenuous if I had conversations with individuals about things that they were going through, and I wasn’t expressing things that I went through.”
He has shared with the world how he has been clinically diagnosed with anxiety and depression. He also admits to living with the weight of combatting suicidal thoughts. “Even when I first got diagnosed with anxiety, I didn’t know what to do with it. As you get older and you start doing the work on yourself, and you start peeling back the layers of your life and realizing, like all of these different things that you grew up on, it’s like, yeah, it was right there, under your nose the whole time … I’m taking people on that journey with me.”
He has borne witness, first hand, the healing power that therapy can lend to anyone’s life. “It’s just something I decided to make my life’s work. We want to provide free therapy services to more than 10 million Black Americans over the next five years. And, we plan to do that through raising money.”
In adding even more impact to his legacy, he shares how he plans to enrich the value of his lessons learned with others for theirs. “We want to train the next generation of psychiatrists and therapists. We want to be able to provide them with scholarships and money to where they can get their certification, especially Black and brown people.”
Chrlamagne is heaven bent on being a surging factor to better the lives of those around him for the long haul. Signing off, he leads us with these words reinforcing his charge. “I’m really gonna commit my life to just helping and helping people heal, especially Black people. Life does not come with any instruction manual. And all of us are just figuring this out on the fly. And if you’re actually doing life right, then there’s always new things to learn.”
If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741, or go to suicidepreventionlifeline.org.
