Content warning: This article contains mention of suicide and sexual assault.
Jimmie Allen is getting honest about a challenging personal period.
Almost one year after his former manager sued him for sexual assault, the "Best Shot" singer shared details about how he struggled with his mental health in the months following. In fact, he said he even contemplated suicide as a means of supporting his family financially after a number of his business deals were allegedly pulled following the lawsuit.
"The first thing my brain goes to is not the career," he told Kathie Lee Gifford in an April 24 YouTube video. "It's, 'how am I going to provide for my kids?' I had three then. I'm thinking to myself, how am I going to provide for my family? And then it hit me. My life insurance covered suicide."
And though he clarified he doesn't "feel that way now," Jimmie—who is father to son Aadyn, 9, from a previous relationship, daughters Naomi, 4, and Zara, 2, and son Cohen, 6 months, with estranged wife Alexis Gale, and twins Amari and Aria whom he welcomed last summer with a friend named Danielle—did detail how close he came to making that decision.
As he told Kathie, there was one day he began loading his gun in a hotel room when a text from a friend came in at just the right time.
"He said, ‘Ending it isn't the answer.' And when I read those words that he texted me, I read them again. I just stopped," the 38-year-old explained. "I remember I called one of my buddies that lived in lower Delaware. He came up. I gave him my gun. I said, ‘Take it. I don't need it.'"
And though he said he briefly turned to drugs to help him cope, Jimmie said he it was going to a retreat and beginning to see a therapist that helped him turn the corner.
"Every single day I remember battling, ‘Do I want to live? Do I not want to live?'" he recalled. "I'm like, ‘Man, my family would have X amount of dollars if I would've [taken] care of something. But I realized that's not the way to do it."
He added, "I am healing and growing for me and my children."
In May 2023, Jimmie's former manager filed a lawsuit under the pseudonym Jane Doe that alleged Jimmie sexually assaulted her over a period of 18 months. In documents obtained by E! News at the time, she alleges that in one instance he assaulted her "while she was incapacitated and incapable of giving consent" and stated "he sexually abused her at red lights, in green rooms, on airplanes, and in other places she was required to be to support him at events."
At the time, Jimmie denied any wrongdoing, stating that their relationship had been consensual.
"It is deeply troubling and hurtful that someone I counted as one of my closest friends, colleagues and confidants would make allegations that have no truth to them whatsoever," he said in a May 11 statement to E! News. "I acknowledge that we had a sexual relationship—one that lasted for nearly two years."
"During that time," he continued, "she never once accused me of any wrongdoing, and she spoke of our relationship and friendship as being something she wanted to continue indefinitely."
In March, the lawsuit was dropped, per People, with Jimmie and his former manager agreeing to avoid litigation.
"FeganScott can confirm that Jane Doe and Jimmie Allen have reached a mutual accord as to Plaintiff's claims and Mr. Allen's counterclaims and have agreed to dismiss them," Jane Doe's legal team from FeganScott LLC told People. "The decision reflects only that both parties desire to move past litigation."
Lawyer Elizabeth Fegan added in an additional statement to the outlet, "While Allen and my client reached an agreement prior to trial, the motivations remained true—to hold Allen accountable, which we succeeded in doing. My client stands by her statements in the complaint, that Allen raped her while she was incapacitated and sexually abused her while she was his day-to-day manger."