A Bittersweet Divorce, a Brutal Well being Disaster and a Really Weird Conspiracy Principle: Inside Avril Lavigne’s Dramatic Final Few Years

For some time there, Avril Lavigne was drowning.

It was 2014 and the pop star, a 12 months into her whirlwind second marriage to Nickleback frontman Chad Kroeger, was busy touring in help of her self-titled fifth album, launched in November the 12 months prior. And the Canadian was feeling uncharacteristically unwell and couldn’t work out why. 

She visited physician after physician, presenting them with the identical factor: “I am achy, I am fatigued, I can not get the f–k away from bed,” as she recalled to Billboard in October. “What the f–k is improper with me?” Their conclusions? Dehydration and exhaustion.

However when the tour ended, taking the obvious root trigger for her diagnoses with it, issues solely bought worse. By October, throughout a visit to Las Vegas with girlfriends to rejoice her 30th birthday, she was virtually fully unable to take part within the easiest of actions. “I may barely eat, and after we went to the pool, I needed to go away and go lie in mattress,” she advised Individuals in 2015. “My mates requested, ‘What’s improper?’ I did not know.”

However when one pal’s instinct introduced her to Actual Housewives of Beverly Hills star Yolanda Hadid, who knew a factor or two about battling a thriller sickness and, in flip, gave Lavigne the variety of a specialist, the pop-punker lastly bought the solutions she’d been eager for: She was affected by a extreme case of Lyme illness. “It was a aid,” she advised The Guardian in January. “I used to be like: ‘OK, now I can at the very least begin treating one thing.'”

After which, as she advised Billboard? “I used to be in mattress for f–king two years.”

At first, she suffered in silence at her residence in Ontario, not letting the world in on what had befallen her. She was placed on a number of antibiotics and antimalarials, prescribed by docs to fight a illness that does not but have an ordinary protocol for therapy. “It is a bug—a spirochete—so you are taking these antibiotics, they usually begin killing it,” Lavigne, who celebrates her 35th birthday on September 27, defined to Billboard. “Nevertheless it’s a wise bug: It morphs right into a cystic type, so it’s important to take different antibiotics on the identical time. It went undiagnosed for therefore lengthy that I used to be form of f–ked.”

Her mother moved in assist handle her, filling in for Kroeger who may solely be of help sporadically throughout breaks in his tour. “I felt like I could not breathe, I could not speak and I could not transfer. I believed I used to be dying,” she advised Individuals. “There have been positively occasions I could not bathe for a full week as a result of I may barely stand. It felt like having all of your life sucked out of you.”

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Together with her followers rising fearful by her absence from the highlight, she took to social media in December to clarify why she hadn’t been seen in weeks. Interacting with fan website @AvrilMusicChart on Twitter, she wrote in direct message, “I really feel dangerous as a result of I have never been in a position to say something to the followers to allow them to (know) why I’ve been absent. I am torn as I am fairly personal. I am not feeling properly. I am having some well being points. So please preserve me in your prayers.”

The personal message quickly turned public and went viral. The hashtag #PrayForAvril quickly started to unfold. “The get-well messages and movies they despatched touched me so deeply,” she advised Individuals. And but, she nonetheless wasn’t able to allow them to in on what, precisely, was occurring.

However by April of 2015, her want to deliver consciousness to the illness outweighed her concern of getting her analysis coming to outline her—if solely barely. And so, she appeared on the quilt of Individuals below the phrases “Her Secret Well being Disaster: ‘I Thought I Was Dying.'” After that, there was no going again. 

“I really feel like I’ve a accountability—I can not simply sit on my ass and do nothing,” she advised Billboard every week later. “I want to speak about Lyme illness, as a result of it is actual, it is on the market, it was a easy bug chunk and it may occur to anyone. Individuals have to find out about it, as a result of it isn’t talked about that a lot and numerous the knowledge that is out there’s inaccurate.”

And but, she was nonetheless making an attempt to downplay how dangerous issues nonetheless have been for her. Within the Individuals story, she claimed to be “80 p.c higher.” Talking with Billboard, she was fast to spotlight the “good that has come out of it”—specifically, the chance for downtime for the primary time in her 15-year profession. And her social media remained cheerful as ever.

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“I placed on a courageous face as a result of I did not need it to be part of my id,” she advised Billboard final 12 months. “So the second I used to be up, I’d take an image and put up it on Instagram and act like my life was f–king nice.”

When she went on Good Morning America two months later, nonetheless, it was abundantly clear that issues weren’t f–king nice. Ostensibly there to advertise her new single “Fly,” tied to the 2015 Particular Olympics World Video games, dialog naturally turned to the large revelation Lavigne had made simply months earlier. And that is when the singer identified for her punk-ish, unflappable angle completely misplaced it, breaking down in tears whereas describing her path in direction of analysis.

“I used to be like, ‘I’ll be courageous and inform the world what is going on on.’ And I did it as a result of I used to be releasing a tune for the Particular Olympics and I wished it to do properly, so I bought pressured to sit down on digicam and discuss it [on GMA],” she advised Billboard. “I wasn’t prepared, and I should not have performed it. I used to be a large number.” (Elsewhere within the profile, the writer famous that Lavigne was “irritated that I did not perceive how misleadingly edited the GMA interview was,” although she was circuitously quoted as saying such.)

Issues would go from dangerous to worse a couple of months later when, on September 2, Lavigne introduced that, after months of hypothesis concerning the standing of their marriage—hypothesis primarily based, primarily, on her absence from public life—she and Kroeger have been separating after two years of marriage.

“It’s with a heavy coronary heart that Chad and I announce our separation right now,” she wrote alongside a pic from their wedding ceremony day. “By means of not solely the wedding, however the music as properly, we have created many unforgettable moments. We’re nonetheless and eternally might be, one of the best of mates, and can all the time care deeply for one another. To all our household, mates and followers, thanks sincerely for the help.”

Whereas Lavigne has largely stored quiet on what went improper within the relationship ever since, all the time preserving speak of Kroeger remarkably constructive, if she talks in any respect, whereas defending him when drained Nickleback jokes come up, a supply advised E! Information on the time that the break up was a very long time coming.

Jag Gundu/Getty Photos

“Actually, she’s doing OK,” the insider advised us. “This has been within the works for awhile.”

Because the supply defined, the couple, who met when her then-manager Larry Rudolph prompt they collaborate professionally—”He is had a ton of hit songs. He performs guitar. This may very well be nice,” she recalled to Billboard. “A month later, I had a 14-carat ring on my finger”—”did not see eye to eye on numerous issues” on the finish of the day.

“They initially bought collectively to make an album and that is the place the spark between them originated,” the insider continued. “Nevertheless it simply slowly died out.”

Nevertheless OK she was and nonetheless slowly the spark disappeared, it nonetheless could not have felt nice. What divorce does? But, Lavigne has magnificently discovered a solution to preserve each of her splits—she was married to Sum 41 lead singer Deryck Whibley from 2006 to 2010—not merely amicable, however downright pleasant. When she was lastly able to get again into the studio and document music for her long-awaited sixth studio album Head Over Water, launched in February, it was in Kroeger’s studio the place she sang her first be aware in years. He ultimately labored on a number of tracks from the album, together with the inspiring, non secular title observe—a observe that got here to Lavigne on one of many worst nights of her life.

As she tells it, she was laying in mattress along with her mom and barely in a position to breathe. Fearing that it is perhaps the top for her, the girl whose household raised her devoutly Christian started to hope. “I had accepted that I used to be dying,” she advised Billboard. “And I felt in that second like I used to be underwater and drowning, and I used to be attempting to return as much as gasp for air. And actually below my breath, I used to be like, ‘God, assist me preserve my head above the water.'”

And that is when she grabbed her telephone, opened her Notes app, and started to doc the beginnings of what could be her comeback single.

“I wasn’t even fascinated by music,” she advised Leisure Weekly. “It simply occurred.”

As she advised Individuals in February, “Music actually lifted me up and made me really feel higher. I used to be in a position to take a tough time in my life and make one of the best out of a circumstance that was I used to be going via…At first I did not know I used to be making an album—I simply naturally turned to songwriting in a time of therapeutic.”

Whereas Lavigne was engaged on the album and managing her Lyme illness—”It is up and down. I am doing my greatest to take care of a wholesome way of life — maintaining a healthy diet, sleeping properly, and understanding. I positively need to tempo myself. However on the identical time, I’ve my life again now: I will make music and make movies,” she advised EW of her restoration efforts—a wild conspiracy idea was operating rampant on the web, resurfacing due to her outing of the highlight.

The gist of the weird declare, which started on a Brazilian fan website (inasmuch as you may name a weblog entitled Avril Esta Morta—or Avril is Lifeless—a fan website), asserts that after the dying of her grandfather in 2003, Lavigne took her personal life, unable to deal with the loss coupled with the mounting pressures of following up her wildly profitable debut album Let Go. Because the outlandish story goes, her document label then changed her with a doppelganger named Melissa Vandella who had supposedly been employed to assist confuse the paparazzi that have been continuously following Lavigne. (Including gasoline to this wild hearth is the existence of a photograph of Lavigne with the title Melissa written in Sharpie on her hand throughout the picture shoot.)

Over time, theorists have supported the bonkers story with perceived inconsistencies within the look of Lavigne’s pores and skin, jawline, and eye corners, in addition to her method to style and her handwriting. You realize, all regular issues that are likely to occur to a lady as she progresses via her 20s.

Pap Nation / SplashNews.com

For years, Lavigne had by no means denied and even addressed the rumors, solely fanning the flames. However throughout a November interview with Australia’s KISS 1065, the place she was requested if she’d laughed on the unusual story, she lastly broke her silence. “Yeah, some individuals suppose that I am not the true me, which is so bizarre,” she stated. “Like, why would they even suppose that?”

Talking with EW earlier this 12 months, she elaborated on the topic when requested if it had affected her personally. “Extra like that it is only a dumb web rumor and [I’m] flabbergasted that folks purchased into it,” she advised the journal. “Is not that so bizarre? It is so dumb. And I look the very same. On one hand, everyone seems to be like, ‘Oh my god, you look the identical,’ and alternatively individuals are like ‘Oh my god, she died.'”

Whereas the web has been foolishly debating over whether or not or not she’d useless, the previous few years have managed to offer Lavigne a brand new lease on life. 

“It put issues in perspective and confirmed me how a lot the small issues in life—mates, love, household, simply your well being—matter essentially the most,” she advised Individuals. She’s even launched into a brand new relationship, courting Phillip Sarofim, son of Texas billionaire Fayez Sarofin, since early 2018. Since its inception, they’ve performed little to name consideration to the romance, by no means confirming it publicly, however they have been noticed out collectively periodically during the last 12 months, most just lately in June.

And whereas a fast skim of a lot of the press that she participated in throughout the lead-up to Head Above Water’s launch earlier this 12 months makes clear that she actually would not wish to discuss her well being woes, she’s grateful that, at the very least, it is allowed her to do some good. “It was painful to face it, and I do not like to speak about it generally, however to show it into music and put it on the market into constructive experiences to assist others has been good,” she advised EW.

In help of the album, which peaked at No. 13 on the Billboard 200, Lavigne was in a position to do one thing that may’ve appeared unthinkable only a few brief years in the past when she launched into the Head Above Water Tour, a 15-stop run of exhibits in North American that kicked off on September 14. E! Information’ Carissa Culiner visited the Grammy nominee in her rehearsal area days earlier than her first efficiency in Seattle, the place she admitted she was feeling “excellent” and able to give again, with proceeds from every ticket donated to her Avril Lavigne Basis, which helps people with Lyme illness, critical sicknesses and disabilities. 

“I believe it is simply bringing consciousness to the truth that it exists. Lots of people do not find out about it,” she defined when requested to share the most important misconceptions concerning the illness. “I did not find out about it and I used to be four-wheeling via the woods on a regular basis and I used to be climbing. I did not know ticks had Lyme illness and it was a factor and I bought a bug chunk and it modified my life eternally.”

After the previous few years, Lavigne finds herself with a complete new outlook. “My method now could be sooner or later at a time. Do not overwork myself—simply ease again into it,” she advised Individuals earlier this 12 months. “I am in an excellent place.”

Lastly.

(This story was initially revealed on February 15, 2019 at three a.m. PST.)