One of the many wondrous things about the human body is the way it repairs itself. Sometimes, quite miraculously. Take the case of Ava Max: pop singer, best known for her 2018 hit Sweet But Psycho, has revealed her vocal cords burst a few years back, but incredibly had grown back within just two weeks.
In an interview with the Daily Star, Max recalls: “I haemorrhaged my vocal chords - they exploded the day before I was due to travel for a promo tour Sweet But Psycho, while it was number one all over the world.”
“The label didn't know, no-one knew, I told them I had strep throat, the flu, anything to get me out of this and or give me two more weeks to go to Europe.”
She told the paper: “And so for two weeks I slept like 14 hours a day, I had like barely any food and I went back to the doctor like a week and a half later and the doctor was like, ‘I’ve never seen a miracle like this but your vocal chords just grew back’, brand new but baby vocal chords.”
“So the first year singing Sweet But Psycho, I look back at the videos and it’s me learning how to sing again with new vocal chords and no-one knows this.”
The singer added that she was “scared” to sing after this, and arguably she’s still playing catch-up career-wise. Her debut album didn’t come out till September 2020, two years after Sweet But Psycho, and she didn’t play live until 2023. She’s currently promoting her third album Don’t Click Play, but that record could only reached Number 28 on the UK chart and a US tour scheduled for this month has been cancelled, amid rumours of poor ticket sales.
Elsewhere in the Daily Star interview, Max revealed that she’d experienced sexual harassment earlier on in her career. “I was locked in a room by a producer when I was 20 years old, and he called my tears crocodile tears….
“I remember that moment and I am just like ‘I never wanna deal with that ever again’ and so I kinda got into a hermit mode, got really sad that year and then I started meeting the right people a year later, but I almost quit, for sure.”
Clearly, she’s had more to deal with than a great many singers in her position.
