Why TikToker Kylan Darnell Really Stepped Back From Alabama Rush
Kylan Darnell is majoring in self-care this recruitment cycle.
The University of Alabama student who has detailed her experience with the school’s sorority rush on TikTok shared why she is taking a step back from her senior year recruitment.
“I’m somebody that wants it to be a positive experience for everybody involved,” Kylan explained to E! News in an exclusive interview. “I truly believe that rush is supposed to be fun. I was somebody that my freshman through junior year, once I got into my sorority, I lived for my sorority. I loved being involved, and I loved waking up and sharing sorority recruitment—it’s always been a fun process for me.”
But like it often does, viral stardom had its downfalls for the 21-year-old, whose sister Isabella Darnell is starting as a freshman at Bama this year.
“Certain stuff that was being commented about my sister and about my own sorority—the negative things—I didn’t want anything to do with that,” she explained, “because people are so sure on the internet. They will see one thing and then they run a mile with it, and it’s not even true. I just didn’t want to be the cause of that.”
She continued, “It was also wearing on my mental health. People forget that people putting out videos are humans.”
The line was drawn, however, for the sports broadcasting major—who has collaborated with the likes of ESPN, NASCAR and MLS Soccer—when Isabella was drawn into the discourse.
“Whenever I saw negative things posted about her and about myself, I was like, ‘All right, I’ve grown up,’” Kylan continued. “I want to be more mature this year. So I was like, ‘I’m just not going to post any more. I’m not going to keep giving into the hate.’ And I couldn’t go online and pretend that I was all sunshine and rainbows like I usually do, because I just was not happy.”
Instead, the “Queen of Bama Rush”—as she is often referred to on social media—decided to take some space and give herself a “little sweet break.”
But don’t worry—she’ll be back. After all, there is a new wardrobe that can’t go to waste.
“I may return for Sisterhood Round just because I bought really cute dresses to show y’all, and I don’t want them to be sitting in my closet for the next year,” she quipped. “Or I may just come back on Bid Day, I haven’t decided. But I am still a Zeta. I’m excited for my senior year.”
Instagram/Kylan Darnell
As she pointed out, “We put ourselves out there so much and it’s okay to take a mental health day. And I did receive a lot of positive comments when I decided to do that. So I just do want to say thank you to all the people that supported me and made me feel so much better about the whole thing.”
After all, there are a lot of future rush-hopefuls watching her.
“I think it’s really important because I know that young girls look up to me and follow me,” Kylan added. “And it’s important to take a break every once in a while.”
The influencer isn’t the only star who has gotten candid about their mental health journeys. Keep reading for more celebrities who have spoken out…
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Penn Badgley
The Gossip Girl alum detailed his experience as a child actor with what he described as “body dysmorphia.”
“I know that I hated my body,” Penn told The Guardian in April 2025, “and simply wanted a different one.”
In response to the weight he gained following his parents’ divorce, he added, “There was just a period where, coming out of depression and isolation, I was jumping wilfully into, but also being thrust into, this world where the more conventionally beautiful I seemed, the more successful I might be, the more value I might have.”
Despite the mental struggles, though, Penn credited his ability to persist to his spirituality.
“That is what allowed me to persevere through the disillusionment, all the things I’d been grappling with,” he explained, “and then come back to it all, but with hopefully some kind of inner transformation.”
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Eliza Coupe
The Scrubs alum has been vocal about her past difficult relationship with food.
“Some may call it an eating disorder, I just call it my life,” she said on the The Funny Thing Is podcast. “My drug of choice was always food. I did crazy s–t with it.”
She added, “I would over-exercise, and there was a sprinkle of bulimia in there.”
Though she has confessed her struggles with her diet, she has also shared her progress with her health and fitness goals.
“When I was 23, I cut all sugar out of my diet, quit drinking, and found yoga and breathing and stretching,” she told Bon Appétit in 2017. “That’s the best Ritalin you could give anyone.”
She continued, “I’m an actress with food issues and body image issues—that’s real. But I’m trying to heal that part of myself and also handle my physical issues naturally by putting the best things into my body.”
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Candace Cameron Bure
The Full House alum reflected on her mental health journey and navigating her battle with depression.
“It’s very difficult to speak out about it, even to your most trusted people,” she shared on her Candace Cameron Bure Podcast. “At least for me, I feel like I should be strong enough to overcome that and then it feels so weak.”
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Billie Eilish
The Grammy winner has been very open about how she protects her energy, such as ignoring haters on social media, while also sharing her advice for those who may need help.
“When people ask me what I’d say to somebody looking for advice on mental health, the only thing I can say is patience,” she told Vogue. “I had patience with myself. I didn’t take that last step. I waited. Things fade.”
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Katy Perry
While everyone was trying to make the best of socially distancing to slow the coronavirus pandemic, the “Firework” artist got real about how situations like this can also be extremely stressful.
“Sometimes I don’t know what’s worse trying to avoid the virus or the waves of depression that come with this new norm,” she shared on Twitter. Katy talked about how she manages those waves, writing, “There is not really anywhere to go besides my car. So I go to my car a lot. That is my safe space.”
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Kendall Jenner
The model, who teamed up with designer Kenneth Cole to raise awareness for The Mental Health Coalition, spoke on Good Morning America about her own experiences with anxiety.
She recalled after her panic attacks started recurring, she, “finally kind of got the information that I needed about it.”
“For me, I have good days and I have some really anxious days, so I’m really off and on,” Kendall expressed, adding that was why she wanted to become involved with the movement. “What I hope to accomplish is for people to not feel as alone.”
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Dwayne Johnson
The Black Adam actor has been open about having depression and how it can be difficult for men to talk about their mental health.
“We all go thru the sludge/shit and depression never discriminates. Took me a long time to realize it but the key is to not be afraid to open up,” he wrote on Twitter. “Especially us dudes have a tendency to keep it in. You’re not alone.”
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Prince Harry
The Duke of Sussex helped break down some of the stigma around seeking help for mental health when, in an interview with the Telegraph, he opened up about his own journey with therapy. As he told the outlet, “The experience I have had is that once you start talking about it, you realize that actually you’re part of quite a big club.”
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Taraji P. Henson
Another proponent of seeking professional help, the Empire star has been open about her struggles with depression.
“I have a therapist that I speak to,” she previously told Variety. “That’s the only way I can get through it.”
Taraji even started The Boris Lawrence Henson Foundation, which works to reduce the stigma around mental health in the African American community and also works to increase the number of Black therapists.
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Lorde
The Grammy winner explained that experiences with an eating disorder and stage freight led her to start a form of PTSD treatment called MDMA and and psilocybin therapy.
“I was touring without stage fright for the first time,” she told Rolling Stone in May 2025. “There was a hook around my guts and everyone in the room was having the same feeling, [like] there’d been a huge pressure change. It made me realize how much I love and kind of need that very deep, visceral response to feel my music.”
She added that her renewed focus on her mental health, as well as her decision to stop taking birth control, caused her understanding of her own gender to become “more expansive.”
“I felt like stopping taking my birth control, I had cut some sort of cord between myself and this regulated femininity,” she continued. “It sounds crazy, but I felt that all of a sudden, I was off the map of femininity. And I totally believed that that allowed things to open up.”
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Lili Reinhart
“When I was in middle school, I was struggling with severe anxiety and depression and the help and support I received from my family and a therapist saved my life,” the Riverdale actress wrote on Instagram in 2017. “Asking for help is the first step. You are more precious to this world than you’ll ever know.”
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Kristen Bell
The Frozen star has talked for years about her strategies for coping with her mental health at public keynotes and even on her Instagram Stories.
She has advocated for finding the methods that help you best, which for her, according to Health, can include medication, listing ten positive things in her life for every negative thought and getting plenty of exercise.
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Chrissy Teigen
While the cookbook author is the proud parent to four kiddos, she’s also been open about postpartum depression that many new mothers experience but feel like they cannot talk about.
“It got easier and easier to say it aloud every time,” she wrote in an open letter to Glamour in 2017. “I want people to know it can happen to anybody and I don’t want people who have it to feel embarrassed or to feel alone.”
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Cara Delevingne
While promoting her book Mirror, Mirror, the model opened up to The Edit magazine about facing depression and suicidal thoughts as a teenager, saying she felt “something dark” in her during that time.
“I relied too much on love, too much on other people to make me happy, and I needed to learn to be happy by myself,” Cara told the publication, via W. “So now I can be by myself, I can be happy. It took me a long time.”
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Ariana Grande
The “Thank U, Next” artist has encouraged fans to seek help if they need, responding to a Twitter user who joked about wondering who Ariana’s therapist is with, “lmaoaoo this is funny as f–k but in all honesty therapy has saved my life so many times.”
“If you’re afraid to ask for help, don’t be,” she continued. “u don’t have to be in constant pain & u can process trauma. I’ve got a lot of work to do but it’s a start to even be aware that it’s possible.”
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Demi Lovato
The singer has been open about her journey with addiction, sobriety, mental health and more, including many of those aspects of her life within her music.
She also continually reminds fans that working on your mental health is an ongoing process where there will be some bad days, previously writing on Instagram, “A reminder to anyone struggling out there – this life is a journey with tons of ups and downs but you can’t give up.”
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Zendaya
Not only has the actress taken on roles that deal with mental health, such as her role as Rue in the teen drama Euphoria, she’s also addressed those issues in her own life, too.
Back in 2013, Zendaya wrote on her now-defunct app that she struggled with anxiety after an appearance on Ellen where her mic went out. She has since learned ways to manage those feelings, adding, “Sometimes you just have to take a step back so things stop stressin’ you.”
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Selena Gomez
The singer candidly described her mental health journey with WSJ Magazine, saying, “My highs were really high, and my lows would take me out for weeks at a time.”
“I found out I do suffer from mental health issues,” she shared. “I got on the right medication, and my life has been completely changed.”
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Lady Gaga
The Grammy winner made it her mission to spread kindness and be open about mental health, including her own.
“I have struggled for a long time, both being public and not public about my mental health issues or my mental illness,” she said during the Global Changemakers Award at Children Mending Hearts’ Empathy Rocks fundraiser in 2018. “But, I truly believe that secrets keep you sick.”
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