Tones and I discusses overcoming ‘overwhelming sadness’ of Dance Monkey success

Tones and I has revealed she’s overcome the ‘overwhelming sadness’ and ‘relentless bullying’ the success of breakout song Dance Monkey resulted in last year. 

Speaking to News Corp on Sunday, the 26-year-old said she wants fans to know she’s ‘tough and strong’ and now embraces her global fame with confidence. 

Since Dance Monkey was released last May, it’s been streamed over 1.5 billion times, topped the charts around the world and led to much scrutiny of Tones and I (real name Toni Watson), that she previously confessed to struggling with.  

‘I’ve felt really good since December… I came to a point where I felt I wasn’t good enough, I’m not good enough to play a festival, I’m a busker,’ she said on Sunday. 

‘Then I started to realise I am good enough because who the f**k would deal with that? So at the end of last year I decided I wasn’t going to let anything bother me. 

‘It’s easy for people to keep holding on to this “Tones is upset” thing that happened in November, when I was just trying to speak out and be honest, but I want people to know I’m fine and I’m not upset. That was last year, let’s move on.’

She concluded by saying she wants young fans to know she’s a ‘tough person’ and they can look up to her because she’s ‘strong’ and not afraid of being vulnerable.

Tones and I told Hit’s Carrie and Tommy in April: ‘There was a point when we were coming up to the ARIAs last year, after I’d had huge success, the next day when I woke up and had this overwhelming sadness and I was not wanting to celebrate it. 

‘I thought it was a black hole of people that just wanted to bring you down. It took me a little bit after that to realise there’s so much good there as well, and to focus on the live performances.’

The former Byron Bay busker added: ‘What happened [was] there was a dark space and I was like, ”Why am I not happy? This is meant to be exciting.”‘

Back in November, just days after winning four ARIA Awards, Tones and I shared a Facebook post about ‘hiding a big black hole’ of sadness, and her excitement was overshadowed by ‘death threats’ and ‘relentless bullying’ she had received.  

‘People always say, “Tones, how does it feel? It must feel great, what are you feeling? You must be over the moon,”‘ she began.

‘It does and I don’t want to take anything away from my well-deserved achievements, and to my fans I love you unconditionally, but I have been hiding a big black hole for a while now.

‘I feel if I hide it, like most artists do, then how are we going to help the next generation of young artists to come… truth is (and we have all seen it), with success comes judgement and opinions.’