Speaking Up for Mental Health Awareness: An Interview with Metta World Peace

An Interview with Metta World Peace

Metta World Peace played professional basketball for 19 years. He won the NBA World Championship with the LA Lakers in June 2010 and received the J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award – the NBA’s highest citizenship and community service honor – in April 2011. He was selected to the 2005-06 NBA’s All-Defensive Team, was voted by the media as 2003-04 NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year and was the only man with 271 steals in his first two seasons in the NBA, breaking Michael Jordan’s record. His autobiography, “No Malice: My Life in Basketball” was released in May 2018 with Triumph Publishing and a documentary on his life in basketball, “Ron Artest: The Quiet Storm” was released on Showtime in May 2019. World Peace is currently pursuing entrepreneurial projects including the XvsX Sports project he cofounded in 2017 and an NFT project, Meta Panda Club, to bring decentralized basketball community to the masses.

World Peace is also known as a prominent mental health advocate, pop culture personality, philanthropist, and media favorite. He raffled off his 2010 NBA World Championship Ring with the proceeds going to his nonprofit, Xcel University (now known as Artest University). The online ring raffle raised more than $650,000. Funds were donated to nonprofits in 5 cities that provide mental health therapists and mental health services to their communities, and to provide scholarships to underprivileged youth in the New York City area.

World Peace was part of the 13th season of ABC’s Dancing With The Stars, a contestant on CBS’s first edition of Celebrity Big Brother, as well as the CBS competition show, Beyond The Edge. He is active in entrepreneurial endeavors, serves as an advisor to several tech start ups, and seeks to help other basketball players who have aspirations for a pro career with his app and league, XvsX Sports. For more information, please visit https://www.xvsxsports.com/, https://metapandaclub.com/, and https://artestuniversity.org/.

Why did Metta World Peace start speaking about his mental health?

• Metta shared his story growing up
• The Crack Epidemic and the impact on his neighborhood
• The challenges of incarceration, lack of education, and access to resources
• Building a shell to protect yourself on the streets
• What you learn and practice in the neighborhood he grew up in
• The role of history and the impact of slavery on mental health of generations of Black people
• The number of friends who are incarcerated
• The role of “chemical imbalance” in the mental health landscape and the family members who have dealt with more serious mental illness
• Metta’s desire to give back to the mental health community

How Metta World Peace is working to solve the problems that lead to poor mental health

• The meaning of his name and why he changed it
• Coming together with all types of people
• Pushing back on separation and division or divisive statements
• No guns or drugs allowed in my neighborhood
• Challenging what has been defined as “life” in his neighborhood
• The lack of connecting resources (like parks) in all neighborhoods
• The importance of play and letting kids be kids

The challenges that Metta World Peace faces in putting forward his message

• Describing self as emotional and colorful
• Needing to boost his confidence
• Mental health stigma before his first disclosure (thanking his therapist in 2010)
• How people perceive Metta versus how he sees himself interacting in the world

Metta World Peace’s vision for the future

• Everyone has access to mental healthcare
• Everyone has a chance to have a good life
• We try to understand each other and what motivates them, what they are going through
• People coming together to improve society
• Parenting and partnership training in schools
• Putting parks in every neighborhood so kids can play, connect, and be kids