British singer-songwriter Arlo Parks announced Friday she is cancelling a number of U.S. tour dates due to work on her mental health.
“I find myself now in a very dark place, exhausted and dangerously low,” the 22-year-old wrote in a message to fans. “It’s painful to admit that my mental health has deteriorated to a debilitating place, that I’m not okay, that I’m a human being with limits.”
Parks said she is scrapping eight shows but plans to resume the tour on Sept. 26 in Portland, Oregon.
“I don’t take decisions like this lightly but I am broken and I really need to step out, go home and take care of myself.”
Parks kicked off the current leg of her tour with shows in Laval, Que. and Toronto.
“I’ve been on the road on and off for the last 18 months, filling every spare second in between and working myself to the bone,” she wrote. “The people around me started to get worried but I was anxious to deliver and afraid to disappoint my fans and myself. I pushed myself unhealthily, further and harder than I should’ve.”
Parks, who released her debut album Collapsed in Sunbeams last year, was named Best New Artist at the Brit Awards and was nominated in the same category at the Grammys.
She is the latest in a growing list of artists to step away from the road citing a need to focus on their mental health.
Last week, British singer Sam Fender, 28, pulled the plug on his remaining tour dates – including one in Vancouver on Sept. 25 – to “take the time to look after my own mental health.
In July, Canadian singer Shawn Mendes cancelled the remaining dates on his Wonder tour, to “take the time I’ve never taken personally, to ground myself and come back stronger.”