Nessa Barrett spilled everything in a tell-all podcast episode of Call Her Daddy with host Alex Cooper. From opening up about her childhood to her struggles with mental health and her past relationships with Jaden Hossler and Josh Richards, the ‘Young Forever’ singer did not hold back.
Growing Up
Nessa started by discussing the hardships she experienced whilst living at home with her parents in New Jersey. As she was blowing up on TikTok, Nessa “hated” going to school. “I would walk into class, they would take pictures of me from Google and make them all the home screens on the computers and then, teachers would use my name and my salary as anecdotes for math problems,” she said.
She later decided to move to LA as her relationship with her dad was on the rocks, and she saw an opportunity to move and stay in school at the same time as online learning became the norm during the pandemic.
“I bought a plane ticket when I was 17, my parents knew I was going to run away,” she explained. “My mindset at the time was, anything other than being at home was better for me. I would have done anything to get out of that situation.”
Nessa on her relationship with Josh Richards
Alex asked Nessa about her relationship with former Sway House member Josh Richards. Josh and Nessa dated publicly throughout 2020.
“I feel like, because of social media, we developed a very serious relationship. It was too serious for how young we were,” she shared. “I felt at the time that a lot of the good parts of our relationship were simply for views and content. It got really hard for me to process because I fall for people heavy, and I get very attached. So, seeing things a certain way, I couldn’t understand.”
Nessa on her relationship with Jaden Hossler
Nessa also addressed the drama surrounding her past relationship with TikTok star-turned-musician Jaden Hossler, explaining that they had always been good friends and were already struggling with their own separate relationships. Once the internet got involved, Nessa felt that it pushed their relationship into “something it probably wasn’t going to be.”
While Jaden and Nessa apparently weren’t together when speculation first came about, the pair felt like they “had to” start a relationship. “I’m not gonna lie,” she added. “I was being like very selfish and I, obviously, felt a certain way.”
She and Jaden dated for a year from April 2021 to April 2022. Throughout their time together, the former couple “honestly, got to experience such amazing things,” from music and touring. “I wouldn’t regret it, and we’ve had a lot of great moments that I would cherish forever,” Nessa said.
Nessa was very respectful when it came to speaking about their breakup and the rumours that Jaden had cheated on her. She told listeners that to her knowledge there was no physical cheating and that she “knows how it feels to want attention from other people when you’re not getting it from the person that you’re with.” Nessa admitted that “I did make a poor decision, but I don’t regret anything” when it comes to her past relationship.
Nessa also explained that she suffers from Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). She said that people who suffer from BPD can unwillingly attach themselves to a “favourite person”, making a nod to her relationship with Jaden.
“When that happens that’s all you can think about and you’ll do anything to make them happy. They’ll become your life and identity at that point and it turns romantic because it’s so hard to identify the difference. I think because Jaden and I spent so much time together…. My brain attached itself to Jaden,” she explained.
Nessa on her mental health
Nessa revealed that she was diagnosed with anxiety when she was just six years old and was immediately put into therapy. She also did family therapy sessions as her parents had always been separated and there were issues surrounding their family dynamics.
The singer also detailed her suicide attempt at 14, whilst noting that she experienced a few brain injuries from playing sports growing up. “Living at home was hard for me. When I was 14… I spiraled. The trauma that my brain had, [it] exacerbated all of my mental health [issues] and everything went terrible. I developed really bad ADHD. I couldn’t go to school,” she said.
“I overdosed — on a medication that I was prescribed to aid my concussion and the pain that came with it. I was at my dad’s house at the time and I think he was making dinner. I was upstairs in my room and he kept calling me down for dinner and I guess I wasn’t answering. And I don’t remember much.”
The worst part of the entire experience, she said, was knowing how it affected her younger brother. “I felt like I scarred him for life”.
After spending three days in the hospital on suicide watch, she was sent to a psychiatric hospital. “As soon as I got comfortable in there and started making friends, it was fun. You start feeling like … I felt like I belonged for the first time,” Nessa recalled, giving her 14-year-old self a message. “Thank God she was in there because I wouldn’t be where l am now. I just felt so like hopeless at that point because I couldn’t really see a future after getting out of there.”
At 18, Nessa was formally diagnosed with BPD which she described as “so painful mentally that it starts to physically hurt.”
Cooper Noriega’s death
On June 9th of this year, Nessa’s best friend, Cooper Noriega passed away. Nessa said this was something that she “couldn’t really ever comprehend.” She added, “I believe you have multiple soulmates in your life, and I feel like he was my platonic soulmate. … I’ve never had anyone understand me the way that he did.”
After he passed, Nessa said she “lost” herself. She explained, “I was destroyed because there was never a thought in my brain that I would ever have to live a single day without him.”
She admitted that she sought help after her second suicide attempt during this time. “I was excited that I got a second chance and I just convinced myself and, especially after Cooper, I’ve developed so much faith and I’ve become religious out of nowhere,” she said. “God must want me here for a reason, you know… I want to live for Cooper, and I just see life so differently now and I feel like now, and for the first time in forever, I’ve been open to getting help seriously.”
For now, Nessa appears to be on a healthier and more positive path as she continues to seek treatment and celebrates the recent release of her new album, ‘Young Forever.’