TINI Hit Rock Bottom. Here’s How She Found Her Way Back to the Top
TINI stands in front of the mirror, staring at her reflection. She picks up a strand of her brown hair and stops for a few seconds to gather courage. Sobbing, she grabs a pair of scissors and starts to cut.
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The scene is part of the trailer that came out last March announcing the arrival of Un Mechón de Pelo, the singer’s most sincere and intimate project to date. This EP proved to be a turning point in the life of the Argentine singer, where shook the glitter off her pop star persona to reveal the thoughts and feelings she had hiding — even repressing — for years.
It’s not like she had been pretending to be someone else under the spotlight before this album. She says she always felt happy on stage, but the problem feelings began to surface once the lights went out. She went through anxiety crisis and with that, panic attacks. This jumble of emotions rushed through her, right in the middle of the most important tour of her career.
Onstage in Barcelona back in June 2023, she opened up to her fans. “Three weeks ago, I thought being able to get back on stage was way out of reach, and it became a goal I set in my mind,” she said. “To be able to be here is a great achievement and in large part, it is thanks to you, for all the love you give me. Thank you very much.” By that time, there were still a dozen dates left in her tour, but she didn’t want to cancel them, so she decided it was time to explain what was happening to her. She knew people only see one side of an artist’s public persona and that they don’t usually see what happens beyond the show.
Still, what she was feeling inside was already showing on the outside. “Fans could tell that something was going on by looking at my eyes and the way I spoke. I didn’t want to pretend I was fine anymore,” she recalls. “I feel that when you are exposed from such a young age, in my case since I was 14, the people who love me and have been following me for so long end up being part of my life, so I needed to be honest. I felt like I could do it.”
TINI, whose real name is Martina Stoessel, grew up in front of the cameras. As a teenager, she was the idol of hundreds of younger people on the popular program Violetta. She was able to record her first albums, make her first appearances in and out of Argentina, perform Frozen’s main theme in Spanish, sing before Pope Francis, and gain international recognition. For four years, she enjoyed the status of Disney girl until she broke away from the character to build a name in the music industry.
She recorded Tini (2016), Quiero Volver (2018), the memorable Tini Tini Tini (2020), and Cupido (2023), her most acclaimed record so far. Her looks, the album’s aesthetics, the collaborations, the genre-shifting songs, and the topics of empowerment and heartbreak caused such sensation that it helped establish her as a Spanish-speaking pop icon. But commercial and professional success is no guarantee of happiness.
“Cupido brought a lot of new experiences: the number of shows, the tour, the songs, the way people connected… everything that was happening to me, professionally speaking,” she says. “[But] behind closed doors, I was deeply sad, which became something I couldn’t handle anymore.” The media exposure from a very young age made her the target of praise but also criticism, rumors, and controversies that were taking their toll on her. This added to other personal issues, including the possibility of losing her father, which made her fall into a spiral from which she almost couldn’t get out. She was then diagnosed with depression.
Months before starting the European leg of her tour, she went to Mexico to tell her family and friends what had happened over the past year. “[In that state] thoughts are not something you can explain. It’s a mental problem that you can’t handle with your mind,” she reflects. “I wish it were that easy with depression, but it’s not.” The healing process is not linear, and after taking this first step, it all went downhill again. “When I started talking to my closest circle, to myself, when I started being more honest, I understood there were a lot of wounds and things going on that I hadn’t wanted to pay attention to for a long time. That is why I also believe that the body is very wise and ends up putting your soul if you don’t stop it.”
When she looked in the mirror, she didn’t recognize herself. Her head was racing, and she didn’t know how to silence it. There were days when she was so paralyzed she couldn’t get out of bed. She couldn’t make sense of anything, not even her own life. “A very close person told me, ‘I don’t think that you don’t want to live anymore, I think it’s that you don’t want to live this life anymore, the one you are choosing to live, but that can be changed,’” she says. But it was easier said than done.
Her stay in Mexico was also important because while she was acknowledging to her support network that she needed help, she had her first big makeover and dyed her hair black. Although some may think that hair is something superficial and just another accessory, in certain cultures, it is something sacred that can mean different things.
Without realizing it, Tini was expressing her feelings through her hair. After having long, brown hair, she went through several stages where it was very short and almost white. “I think I changed the color eight times,” she recalls. “It was really crazy to see how it represented the process I was going through. It was the most visual thing ever. I feel like that represents the way everything grows back, everything starts over. The number of times I changed it — because of what was happening to me — pretty much represents what the album was about, emotionally speaking.” Thus, she found the guiding principle for her next EP.
Unlike other projects in which she would usually hesitate to move forward, she had no doubts this time around. By that time, TINI had another record almost ready, but she suspended it to make more room for a more urgent project. Something deep down told her it was necessary. This resulted in the quickest album of her career but also the most complex, on an artistic and emotional level. Altogether it took her three months in the studio and almost another three to fully develop the concept.
The process was so fast and intuitive that uncertainty only hit her days before its release. She had never been this honest with her fans. “I am opening my heart. I am telling a big part of my story. I am being greatly exposed,” she thought to herself. And yet, she understood there is some power in being vulnerable.
Un Mechón de Pelo is dark, raw, and straightforward – adjectives that not commonly associated with the image of someone who sang the bubbly hit “Miénteme.” Even though TINI already had ballads like “Carne y Hueso,” this was the first time she wasn’t singing about romantic love. She sang to her father, friends, and herself. And it was, above all, dedicated to Martina.
The EP starts with “Pa,” a song that describes the fear of losing someone you love, in which she sings lyrics like “I’ve written love songs, but never to the first one” and “You taught me how to love by loving me.” There are other moments like “Posta” or “Ni De Ti,” in which she rebels against the criticisms she has gotten over the years, giving the middle finger to those who have spread rumors about her life. Other cuts like “Miedo,” “Tinta 90,” and “Buenos Aires” are deeply honest and they help better understand her need for release.
“I think what’s interesting about Un Mechón de Pelo is that it isn’t dedicated to a lover or certain individuals; it is dedicated to me,” TINI says. “I talk a lot to myself in the album. I talk a lot to that little girl, that teenager, the woman I am today. I dive into very profound themes instead of telling a love story. I believe we didn’t visit some places because they were irrelevant.” Once the album was released to the world, she realized that it had not only helped her — it helped her fans, too. “In the end, people relate to those who have lost, who are going through a similar process,” she explains, noting the first single “Pa.” “What happened was incredible. Some fans would tell me their life story. Those were some very personal chats in which everyone wanted to open their hearts. I think it was an album that unintentionally encouraged that a little bit.”
TINI warns that such difficult processes require patience and compassion but stresses that she felt the project could help someone put into words what might be difficult to verbalize. “Don’t compare your emotional process to mine. Some might take four months, three or five years,” she says. “What’s important is to understand that you want to keep giving yourself all the necessary opportunities. Continue being honest with yourself during the process and be true to what is happening to you.” TINI also advises prioritizing and giving yourself the right amount of space to get back on track. In her case, she wanted to heal so she could be well for her friends, so she could feel alive again, no matter how long it took. “This is not a race to see who gets first. It’s a long-distance race that takes as long as it needs.”
A couple of weeks after the album’s release, the singer performed five shows in Buenos Aires on a revolving stage under a Greco-Roman arch almost 65 feet high. Thousands of fans — who sold out the first performances in minutes — witnessed a live experience loaded with such theatricality that was TINI gave everything to her audience.
The making of the album was a period of introspection and deconstructing concepts deeply rooted within her. Now that she can look back with a different perspective, she has understood that success is not as they picture it, nor does it come from numbers and recognition. She understands you can be at the top one day; you can be at the bottom the next. She still finds it difficult to define success, but after having experienced so many things, what’s most valuable to her would is being home and having friends who love her.
“I think a person’s greatest success is the love you choose to surround yourself with. After that, sharing whatever accomplishments you have with somebody else,” she reflects. “I think the real and greatest success is to have true love. I believe you can’t buy that. It can also be built, and for me, the most beautiful thing you can build is a connection.” The Argentine singer points to the connections she makes on tour and the people behind the scenes, who she considers family.
She describes her own family as a “constant learning experience” due to generational clashes that are not always easy to reconcile. She admits that understanding which of her parents’ traits she will carry forever and which she does not share at all has taken effort, but adulthood has helped her be able to say, “I am different, and I think differently, and that does not mean I don’t love you” to them. She’s also been able to see her parents as people who are alive for the first time — just like her — and have done the best they could for her with what they had.
Throughout this interview, TINI mentions her friends repeatedly. This is because, she says, she has found true happiness with them. So, what is happiness for Martina? “A hug from a friend, a chat with a friend, a glass of wine with a friend, a coffee with a friend, watching a movie, telling them my deepest sorrows and greatest happiness.” Her group of girlfriends have known each other from a very young age and seen each other grow. And because they’re not in the same environment as the artist, they have shown her other realities that have made her grow as a person.
One of the great lessons from Un Mechón de Pelo is that allowing yourself to feel and be vulnerable does not mean you are weak. This period has shown a stronger, braver, and more resilient version of the artist, who has been gathering tools to help recognize when something isn’t right with her.
TINI makes it clear that her adventurous and daring personality does not include regret. She describes herself as “a soul totally devoted to living.” Although she admits there are experiences she would have preferred not to have had, she has taken something away from all of them. “When you learn the most is by making mistakes,” she says. “The easy way of not making mistakes… I don’t think I have that personality. I have the type of personality to wake up and suddenly want to do this, do that, want to act, to play this character, and make these decisions that will carry consequences, but I don’t think I will ever not want to live life.”
If she could talk to the former Martina, she would tell her to never stop listening to her inner voice and to never walk away from the people who truly know what is in her heart. Otherwise, the singer says she is still learning how to set boundaries and understand herself.
***
TINI answers Rolling Stone en Espa?ol’s call just after arriving home from filming the music video for her new song with Coldplay, “We Pray.” She was sick and still hadn’t taken off her wig. She starts talking about a new series she’s going to be a part of soon. “It’s been 10 years since I acted,” she says. “I really wanted to get back into acting, but I didn’t know when the time was going be right.”
She seems excited because part of the making an album sparked a desire to change her environment and breathe new air. “When you are in a set, you feel all the shared energy. We are all making a project. Each character is important, and we are all equal. You leave your ego aside, especially when you are playing someone who is not even yourself,” she says. The last time she played a big role on television was Violetta.
The singer has been gradually shedding Un Mechón de Pelo while still undergoing treatment accompanied by her psychologist and psychiatrist. After spending so much time without seeing a way out, she sees the silver lining of what she went through. “I was finally able to have uncomfortable conversations with myself and others after many years,” she says. “It wasn’t easy, so beyond the album, I think I was very brave. Maybe when I grow up, I will be able to appreciate it more. I mean, I am already grown up, but maybe at 50, I will be able to see it with different eyes.”
TINI is in a more stable place, but suffering from depression, she knows that could change at any moment. However, the singer now has the tools she didn’t have before to help her cope. “I feel very at peace and liberty to express myself, talk to you today, and make the music I feel like making. I feel free, and I think that is priceless,” she states.
When asked what kind of person she would like to become, the artist replies that her goal is not fixed and she will continue to build it as the years go by. What is clear is that she wants to speak from her heart and does not want to lose sight of what’s essential in life. “I don’t want to let me down, and I think that’s what matters the most.”
PRODUCTION CREDITS
Executive Producer: ALEJANDRO ORTIZ. Styled by DAV MARTENS. Photography Assistant: MANUEL GóMEZ GONZáLEZ and MARCO ORNELAS. Makeup by IVáN FERNáNDEZ. Hair by ZACARIAS GUEDES. Art and Production Design by LUIS ROJAS LUINO. Produced by DANIELA GARCíA. Production Assistant: DIDIER MOLINA. Styling Assistants: MERY WHITE and CARMEN MARTINEZ.
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