Gucci Mane is revisiting the Lenox Mall video, which is still one of his most talked-about moments to date.
The rapper told Nightline that the 2013 Atlanta mall confrontation came during weeks of deteriorating mental-health symptoms. At the time, footage showed Gucci getting ready to fight a bystander as a crowd gathered to watch.
“I never had got treatment or help,” he said. “So I was just doing a whole bunch of irresponsible things. The Lenox Mall episode, when I was about to get into a fight at the mall, that was part of a three-week, maybe four-week spiral of things just getting progressively bad to worse.”
Gucci, who has since released Episodes, has also spoken about being diagnosed with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Last year on The Breakfast Club, he appeared with his wife, Keyshia Ka’oir, who described how she tries to keep his episodes private and under control before they escalate.
“I control that,” Ka’oir said of removing his social media access. “You’re not going on Instagram, you’re not going on Twitter, it’s deleted.” She said she watches for isolation, loss of sleep and unusual text messages, including “a period after each word.”
“It was really, really bad,” she said. “It’s really sad because you’re seeing someone you don’t know.” Gucci said he later chose therapy and medication, adding, “People can want it for you, but you still got to want it more than they do.