Cody Simpson: ‘I’m a little neurospicy’

Australian singer, stage performer and swimmer Cody Simpson has opened up about mental health and his “rollercoaster” life in the spotlight on the latest episode of the Mental As Anyone podcast.

There was a time Cody Simpson would get his dopamine hit from partying and the adoration of thousands of fans.

These days, the singer-turned-professional-swimmer-turned-actor gets his high another way.

In perhaps one of his most revealing interviews yet, the 28-year-old former child star spoke of his rise to global fame.

“Teens, early 20s are usually a bit crazier for everyone, but I guess I just had it magnified by the lifestyle and everything that was available to me at the time,” Simpson said on the latest episode of the Mental As Anyone podcast.

Cody Simpson during the recording of the Mental As Anyone podcast. Picture: Christian Gilles

“There’s a really interesting theory around fame being just a dopamine flood and that happening to young people can really fry your receptors and sense of normal life and what you know the way you should feel all the time.

“I think that’s why a lot of young people that have experienced that quite young … do fall into drugs or do fall into alcoholism or some other forms of addiction is because they’re trying to chase this high that they were sort of given so easily so young that now all of a sudden real life doesn’t meet that level.”

Simpson, who is currently treading the boards as the lead as Skye Masterson in Guys & Dolls on Sydney Harbour at Mrs Macquarie’s Point, was discovered on YouTube at the age of 12, when he and his family moved to Hollywood and he began mixing with the biggest names in the business.

His life today on the Gold Coast with partner, Olympic swimming great Emma McKeon, is a world away from those days.

Cody Simpson (second from left) with the cast of Guys & Dolls.

“The swimming thing really helped me bring the whole thing back to a more sustainable and healthy kind of level for me, as opposed to always kind of chase like a certain thing,” he explained.

“I certainly try to approach things with a sense of calm because I’ve been through major successes and failures and just been on a roller coaster from a very young age and have had to learn to not get swept up in or as much in the highs or the lows because you know they both can take you for a spin if you’re not careful. I’ve certainly been victim of super high highs and super low lows and so I try to sort of approach them almost approach them both the same way now.”

Simpson described fame as “a bit of a drug”.

“That’s sort of all I can really describe it as is you get these hits and then when you’re not getting it, you’re wondering what’s wrong with you and you want it again and you know especially when you’re young and you go up on stage and thousands of people are screaming your name and all this stuff and then you go back to the peace and quiet of your own house, post-tour depression was very real,” he said.

Simpson, seen here at The 2010 Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards, was a child star.

Simpson recorded songs in the US when he was only 13.

“I remember coming home from like a six week run in Europe, just having an unreal time knowing I was going to get that rush every night on stage and then coming home and sitting in my living room and just bursting into tears wondering what was wrong with me.

“I was like, ‘oh my brain’s not getting this right now’. And so it’s a weird thing and … there’s not really anything available to people to learn how to deal with that. It’s just like, thrown into it. And then when it’s over, it’s over or it just sort of either continues until it crashes and burns or it fizzles out and you’re kind of left in the what feels like the abyss.”

More broadly, Simpson said he had not dealt with any specific mental health issues.

A cousin, who is a psychologist, told him of the new term, neurospicy, that he related to.

“That is definitely me,” he said.

“I could say that I’m certainly a little neurospicy. The way I approach life and I guess the upbringing I’ve had has caused me to live and think in, you know, ways that may be less conventional but I love that about myself and I appreciate and have zero regrets around the way my life and my upbringing has made me the way I am because I wouldn’t have it any other way. If I had to do it again, I’d do it all the same way.”

Cody Simpson and Jonathon Moran smile for the camera while recording Mental As Anyone at ProPodcast in Sydney. Picture: Christian Gilles

Elsewhere in the podcast, Simpson said he was happy to close the chapter of his professional swimming career and no longer had the Olympics in his sights after failing to make the Paris Games last year.

He would also like to be a father one day and would look to raise his kids in Australia for “hopefully more normal of an upbringing than I had”.

“I wouldn’t stop them (following his footsteps into entertainment), but I’d probably try and delay it as long as I could, at least past those teen years,” he said.

“I just think it’s better for their development, not that I turned out like shit or anything, but I just would want them to be able to go to high school and have all that normalcy.”

* Guys & Dolls on Sydney Harbour at Mrs Macquarie’s Point runs through until April 20.

* A new episode of Mental As Anyone is released each Tuesday morning.