JoJo used alcohol to 'numb the pain'

The Leave (Get Out) hitmaker found fame at the age of 13, a year after signing her first recording deal with Blackground Records, but things behind the scenes weren't all great for JoJo, as she was later pressured to lose weight using dangerous dieting methods. JoJo, who has previously opened up about her dieting disasters, suffered in silence for a while until she decided she wanted out, and as she engaged in a lengthy legal battle with executives from the now-defunct label, which prevented her from releasing new material for a decade, she found herself drowning her sorrows with alcohol.

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A photo posted by JoJo. (@iamjojo) on Oct 3, 2016 at 12:43am PDT

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"I've had many low points, honestly," the singer told Entertainment Tonight. "I thought, 'How can I come back from this, you know, too much time has passed.'

"I was depressed, I was drinking a lot because I wanted to get out of my mind. I'm being totally honest... I just wanted to feel good and get out of my mind and that was obviously trying to fill a hole that I had." JoJo, now 25, successfully sued her old label in a court fight that lasted more than seven years, after it was revealed that it was illegal for her to have signed a contract as a minor. Read more: Is social media hurting your kids’ self esteem? She has since scored a new deal at Interscope Records, and her new single, F**k Apologies, which features rapper Wiz Khalifa, is all about female empowerment - a theme which runs throughout her upcoming album, Mad Love.

"I don't feel confident one thousand per cent of the time, but oftentimes I write the songs that I need to hear, with the messages that I need to," she explains of her new sound. "I feel like, particularly as females, sometimes we apologise for taking up space... for taking the moves that we need to make, whether we realise that we're being apologetic for it. So, it really is just about knowing who you are, digging who you are, not making excuses to make other people feel comfortable."

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Mad Love, which hits retailers on Friday, is the follow-up to 2006's The High Road.

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