a history of depression, saying that she has "been suffering since the ages of 13 and 15". During her time with Destiny's Child, she says that she told their then manager Mathew Knowles about her feelings, but that he did not really understand. He replied to her concerns by trying to point out the good side of their new-found fame, "You all just signed a multi-millionaire dollar deal, you're about to go on tour, what have you got to be depressed about?" She said that she had difficulty understanding her own feelings until later in life, around her thirties, stating that "I didn't know until I was in my 30s what was going on, I just thought it was growing pains, I just thought I'm turning into a woman." She also felt that Knowles intended no malice, and only had her best interests at heart, "Bless his heart... I think he wanted me to be grateful, which I was, but I was still sad." Williams again felt helpless after she and her fiancé, Chad Johnson, split up in late 2018. She said the breakup left her "shattered and ... fighting suicidal thoughts." She said that she felt "so angry. The rage built up in me. I did not attempt suicide, but I was questioning [life]". Williams suffered a nervous breakdown just after opening day for a Broadway production of Once on This Island and was advised to leave the show by her doctor. By April 2020 she had returned to better health, saying that "I am in a better place now. I am not perfect. I'm not preaching ... When people say it gets better, it does. It just takes time. The days do get brighter". Memoir In November 2020, Williams announced plans to release a memoir "revealing her entire truth including a deeper dive into where her anxiety and depression came from." She stated, "I'm ready to share, I've been a very transparent person and now I'm ready to share the good, bad, and ugly parts of my journey—the concerning part of my journey. ... I really go into the specifics, I really go into the first time I was diagnosed, I go into assessing the first time I had anxiety in a romantic relationship and what it did to that relationship and then subsequently what it did to the next one." Williams said she hoped to "really help