Thierry Henry has revealed that he has been dealing with depression throughout his life.

Speaking on the Diary of a CEO podcast, the France legend said that he has grappled with mental health issues “throughout my career, and since I was born,” adding that the realization came to him during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“I must have been in depression. Did I know it? No. Did I do something about it? No. But I adapted to a certain way. That doesn’t mean I’m walking straight, but I’m walking. You’ve got to put one foot [forward] and another one, and walk. That’s what I’ve been told since I’m young.

“I never stopped walking. [If I had,] then maybe I would have realized. [During] Covid, I stopped walking. I couldn’t. Then, you start to realize.”

Henry: ‘I was crying almost every day’

In particular, Henry said that a spell coaching CF Montréal (at the time, the Montréal Impact) during the pandemic is where the issue truly came to a head.

“I was isolated in Montréal,” explained the France U-21 coach. “Not being able to see my kids for a year was tough. Something like that had to happen to me for me to understand vulnerability, empathy, and crying. Understand that anger and jealousy are normal.

“I was crying almost every day, for no reason. Tears were coming a lot. Why? I don’t know. Maybe they were there for a very long time. I was crying for everything. I don’t know if that needed to come out. It was weird, in a good way… I couldn’t hide them. I couldn’t suppress them.”

Henry explained that he was essentially walking out the door to return to Montréal ahead of the start of the 2021 MLS season when he realized he had to make a different choice.

“I put my bags down to say bye, and everybody starts to cry, from the nanny to my girlfriend to the kids,” recounted the 46-year-old. “For the first time, I am like, ‘Oh, they see me, not the football player, not the accolades,’ and I felt human.

“I put my bags down and I stopped coaching in Montréal. I said, ‘What am I doing? Going to go again into a situation just because of your pursuit of pleasing people?’ They love Thierry, not Thierry Henry. I stayed. For the first time I felt human…and it felt nice.

“That is when I really stopped. I was becoming a coach and I was trying to find things to stop myself from thinking about what had been chasing me. Deal with what has happened. We tend to run, instead of facing our problems. You stay busy and try to avoid what has happened.”

The Arsenal icon said that once he retired from playing, he began to confront some moments from his past that he had previously avoided considering.

“I was lying to myself,” stated Henry. “When you aren’t a player anymore, you cannot put the cape on. Everything starts to creep in. You go back to what happened… That’s when it becomes scary, because you don’t have the answers. Usually, I have the answers for everything.

“My brain would start overthinking, and when you overthink, you usually don’t go to the positives. You tend to bring yourself down. Whatever is not good in your life, you try and find a way to cover it.”