Frankie Muniz responds to viral mental health post reaction

Frankie Muniz's late-night posting on X (formerly Twitter) saw his mental health update reach viral heights as he revealed his struggles mentally and emotionally to his followers. Talking in a follow-up interview, the actor-turned-driver discussed his feelings further.

Muniz posted to his X account in the early hours of Monday, 21 April.

"If I'm being 100% honest... Mentally/emotionally I may be at a new low. Just wanted to say it out loud," he posted.

This message from the former child star has since garnered 37,000 likes, has been seen by 2.6 million users, and received widespread coverage by media outlets. It came after a difficult run at Rockingham Speedway, where the driver struggled through issues with his car that became damaged during the race, eventually finishing 23rd and over 20 laps behind the drivers at the front of the pack.

In an interview on Kyle Dalton's "Beating and Banging" YouTube channel following the post, Muniz discussed the overwhelming response.

"I never expected for me to do a Tweet at three in the morning and it became the front page of People Magazine and USA Today," he admitted. "And everyone who's written stories about it, they write it and nobody contacted me, right?"

Frankie Muniz, Reaume Brothers Racing Fordkaden

Photo by: Logan Riely / Getty Images

While may publications speculated on the reasoning behind his mental health struggles, Muniz added that his feelings weren't down to a specific thing.

He continued: "Nobody knows what's going on in my head. Nobody knows why I wrote it, but they make it about my racing, or they make it about my team, or they make it about the Malcolm reunion and it's not any of those things. There's factors of emotion from those things that go into why I wrote that tweet.

"I feel like I'm failing in all aspects of my life right now. And a lot of that comes from me being like a hard worker and hard on myself. And I have high expectations for myself," he said. 

Muniz is balancing his racing career with filming the anticipated Malcolm in the Middle revival for Disney+, something he describes as "the craziest schedule of his career."

"I'm trying to be the best actor I can be, but also the best race car driver," he said on Instagram Live following the confirmation of the show's return.

Concluding his thoughts on his post, he described his appreciation for the people who reached out to him, which included drivers Kenny Wallace, Daniel Suarez. Even YouTube star Mr Beast posted a response: "Been there, it will fade and make the highs feel that much better."

"Yeah, it has been a really amazing thing in a sense because I don't normally speak that candidly about like emotions or how I feel," Muniz said. "And you know, the amount of people that did write me on Twitter or X and I don't know and that I do know.

"And then even like people who wrote me, it did make me feel like a lot of people are in my corner."