When Tyrone singer Janet Devlin lit up the TV screens on X-Factor few knew she was battling depression and well on her way to alcoholism, but now, nine years later, she is back with a new album, a début book under her belt.
The 25-year-old has also amassed nearly 600,000 subscribers to her TikTok channel with many not even knowing she was a singer songwriter and X-Factor star.
Now she has opened up about her struggles, going into rehab, and finding new motivation, declaring “I’m not going to hide anymore”.
At the height of her fame after X-Factor Janet, from Gortin, was already struggling with multiple issues.
“I struggled from the age of twelve with depression and before TV I was a self-harmer and anorexic,” Janet explained. “Doing TV was a really good thing. It kept me sane and it made me realise that when I have a goal to work towards and I said to myself I can stay off the self-destruction train.”
As she was working on her first album, Running With Scissors, she realised there were more problems surfacing. “I became a full-blown alcoholic by the age of 20,” she said. “Eventually I got sober and kept it together for some time but then I relapsed with my anorexia and I had a very circumstantial recovery with a lot of things.
“I was also taking benzodiazepines. I wasn’t aware of the addictive nature of those. It never came up.
“In January 2019 I went to rehab and I took all of my issues with me and I realised that I had an issue with the benzodiazepines.”
With new album Confessional out and her autobiographical book released it is a triumph for the Gortin woman.
However, her TikTok videos have helped her open up.
“I feel like people are seeing a different side of me because I’m now able to constantly talk about a lot of things that I’ve been through and make those videos and talk about these things,” she said. “I’m actually able to be myself because I’m not going to hide anymore. There are no more secrets so it’s really freeing.”
Many were drawn to her joke telling and funny videos, but it has enabled Janet to have more perspective on where she is now.
“When the last album was released I was so unhappy,” she explains. “There’s a photo of me holding up my album when it first arrived, and you can see my scars on my arms so I could never post it. I was just dead behind the eyes. I’d turn up for morning TV hungover after three days on the bend, so it was not a good time for me. Whereas this time around it’s so different.”
Despite being released during lockdown it is already chalking up significant sales, at a time when her book – My Confessional -was also completed.
“I never thought I would be able to make the book I wanted because books are very expensive to make.” Janet explained. “It surpassed my expectations by miles.
“I opened the box of books on camera, and I sat on the day of release watching the tweets come and the first message I got was ‘I finished the book’. That’s where I got my freedom – I thought ‘here we go – it’s not my book anymore – somebody else has read it. It’s just a story in a book now. It’s not my life’. That was the best feeling.”
Equally Janet faced up to her difficult past on the album, but in her book she describes the meaning behind each track, including a trauma from when she was just 15 as related in the track Speak.
And the track Cinema Screen she deals with her anorexia, and being open surprised some.
“I was in band rehearsals recently with guys I’ve known for years and one of the guys turned round and made a comment about Cinema Screen and I said ‘yeah, the eating disorder song’.
“He said ‘I always fall for your stuff. I thought this was the break-up song with a boy and now you’re telling me it’s about an eating disorder’.”
With her TikTok videos Janet believes she can help and support others, as well as provide a release for herself.“I’m comfortable putting out content that is light-hearted but is about serious topics,” Janet said. “I’m trying to normalise that you can be a young alcoholic. Trying to normalise the many mental health issues that I have.
“I have talked about eating disorders in the videos in a normal way like ‘we’re gathered here today to mourn the fact that I’m a self-harmer’. None of that – it’s all just jokes because a lot of people are going through it.”
That sense of humour helped Janet throughout her period fighting against her demons.
“What made me feel better when I was getting into recovery was people laughing at it. For me laughing at my issues took the power away from them.
”I especially remember talking about alcoholism – people were laughing at their darkest period of time. They were telling their stories and they were laughing about it but I was like ‘I’m currently in that pain and that agony and one day maybe I can get to that place where I can laugh and joke about it’.”
Currently back in London she recently spent six months back in County Tyrone.
“All I got was love when I was home,” Janet explained “I was trying to be as normal as I could – going to the gym – trying to make new friends and everybody was really nice.
“It made me realise I had quite a few trust issues, so my relationship with the public was only damaging because I was toxic for myself. It wasn’t the industry, it wasn’t anything that was going on. It was my own internal monologue that was making it bad.”
Janet revealed that she wants to explain what she was going through, especially to her mother.
“I think when you have the mental clarity to write those things down you’re also more aware then of other people’s feelings, like the feelings of my mum.
“I remember calling her one day and saying ‘Mummy, I’m so sorry for everything I’ve put you through’. ‘Don’t think that I ever wanted to take your love for granted while I was scathing myself apart’. ‘Also sorry that you brought a beautiful little baby into the world and I tore it apart.’ ‘I love you’. It was probably the best phone call I’ve ever made.”
The album Confessional and the book My Confessional are available now via her website www.janetdevlin.com