Source: Entertainment Weekly

Sara Bareilles had to be “brave” early in her career while opening for Maroon 5.

The singer has known Adam Levine & Co. since her college days at the University of California, Los Angeles, back when the band was originally called Kara’s Flowers. In 2007, as her debut single “Love Song” climbed the charts, Bareilles was invited to be an opening act on Maroon 5’s It Won’t Be Soon Before Long Tour — one that she would soon not forget.

“Oh, my god, it was crazy. I saw cocaine for the first time,” she recalled to Rolling Stone in a new interview. “Went to use the bathroom at a party and there was a little — this does not even belong to the band. This was just one of those things where we’re out. And I was like, ‘Oh, my god, that’s cocaine!’ Couldn’t believe it.”

A representative for Maroon 5 did not immediately respond to EW’s request for comment.

For the record, Bareilles didn’t partake. “Still never done cocaine, guys,” she insisted. “I don’t do drugs, except with therapists.”

The singer-songwriter hit the road again with Maroon 5 for their Hands All Over Tour in 2011, and this time she was astonished by the band’s overzealous female fans.

“There was literally a lot of throwing underwear,” remembered Bareilles. “I was like, ‘I thought this was like a trope that happened,’ but it’s real. They just throw their underwear. ‘Did you bring two pairs?’ is the first thing I think about. Because if you’re wearing a skirt and you sit down on a surface, your vagina is touching the chair. This is where my mind goes.”

Visual shockers aside, the Grammy winner’s time with Maroon 5 changed the trajectory of her career, for which she remains grateful.

“Those boys were so wonderful to us,” Bareilles told Rolling Stone. “They felt like big brothers. They took me and my band on the road. They took us under their wing. They shared everything they had. It was really awesome.”

The singer sat down with the music magazine to discuss Good Grief, her first new album in seven years, inspired by “depressive episodes” she suffered during the 2020 pandemic and the back-to-back deaths of two of her dear friends.

“What I realized is that grief must be witnessed. You must share it. It doesn’t heal on its own,” Bareilles explained. “And the recognition that is born from taking the time to share and unpack and just see each other in your grief is the thing that actually transforms and transmutes.”

Looking back on the dark period and how she moved beyond it, she acknowledged it’s a bittersweet evolution.

“Of course I wish my friends were still here, but I am a different person because of losing them and loving them,” she said. “And I am more of who I think I’m meant to become because of it. So it’s wild. Grief is a miracle. It’s just love. It’s so beautiful.”