Rebecca Black turns pain into joy in new 'Friday' remix: 'I've done a lot of work to heal'

Exactly 10 years ago, Rebecca Black's life changed forever.

At the age of 13, the singer became a household name after her 2011 music video "Friday" shot to viral fame. The video, which saw Black bobbing along in the back of a convertible while singing about how much "fun fun fun fun" she was going to have over the weekend, made the teen the target of widespread ridicule.

"My relationship with 'Friday' has taken quite the journey over the past 10 years, which makes sense as I've looked back," Black told USA TODAY.

Though the singer has been open about the bullying, depression and career setbacks she's faced following "Friday," she added that she's noticed a shift in the way people have come to view the song over the past decade.

"The way that I feel about that song has really changed," she continued. "I've done a lot of work to heal from the more painful parts of what that experience was for me. I get so many comments, and it's so surprising to me how many people have such a genuine, nostalgic love for it."

It's this nostalgia that inspired Black to drop a remix of her hit song on Wednesday, exactly 10 years after the original "Friday" was first uploaded. Black also made a new music video for the remix that calls back to the original.

"You know, sitting on the back of a convertible is not something I do every day, so it feels quite like yesterday, I guess," Black said of the new video, which sees her back in her childhood bedroom and singing in another convertible.

But though she's singing the same lyrics, Black isn't an awkward middle schooler anymore. In the video, the singer, 23, gets into a car race with Dorian Electra while rocking a tight black ensemble and spiky blue jewelry. Her RIAA-certified gold record for "Friday" sits in the passenger seat.

"We really just allowed ourselves to push it as crazy as we could," said Black, whose remix also features Big Freedia and 3OH!3. "That's the fun in this video and in the original, honestly. It's just the innate naivete and really pure insanity. We just tried to capture that essence in a way that was more intentional rather than accidental."

According to Black, her goal for the remix was simple: to take an experience that was once a source a pain and turn it into something joyful.

"I have really done a lot of work to find my voice as an artist and find what I have to say now that I'm 23 and not 13," she said. "This whole project really allowed me to just kind of take those reins back in a way that I hadn't and to just have fun with it, honestly."

Black said she hopes the remix can provide "a little spark of nostalgic joy" for people during a difficult time.

"I hope that this (music video) shows that you can turn out OK," she said. "I don't constantly have this weight that I'm carrying around with me everywhere. I'm just treating it as something that's been a really fun project and something that, while it isn't the thing that is going to define me forever, it's definitely a part of my story. So why not take that and have fun with it?"

Rebecca Black opens up about depression, bullying she faced for viral video 'Friday'

And Black isn't done making music. On Jan. 29, she released a music video for her song "Girlfriend," and she said she's spent most of her coronavirus quarantine working on a project she hopes to release this summer.

According to the singer, she's given herself the freedom to take creative risks with this project – something she hopes more people have learned to embrace since her "Friday" days.

"We're always just trying to figure it out. I'm still just trying to figure it out and make music that I really care about," she said. "There's a lot of goodness in creativity. There's a lot of goodness in experimenting. There's a lot of goodness in trying to figure out who you are, and don't let anybody else tell you differently. Even if it means you end up with a 'Friday' video."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Rebecca Black opens up about making new 'Friday' video 10 years later