Speaking her truth. Lily Collins opened up about her past eating disorder and her journey to recovery in an interview with Shape Magazine which was published on Thursday, June 22.
While the Abduction actress, 28, feared that speaking out about her former condition would “overshadow” her acting career, she felt that she had to in order to “let go.”
“I’ve always strived to start conversations about taboo subjects with young women,” the Mirror, Mirror star told Shape. “I’ve always admired people who are relatable and honest. Having suffered from an eating disorder doesn’t define me; I’m not ashamed of my past.”
Collins, who candidly discusses her struggles in her emotional memoir Unfiltered, explained how her definition of healthy has changed over the past few years. “It’s so important to feel internally and emotionally healthy, just as much as it is physically healthy.” Added the Stuck in Love star, “I think I’ve come to a better understanding of myself in terms of body image, and how food is really fuel, not punishment.”
The British-born actress is also staring in a new Netflix movie, To the Bone, which touches on anorexia. “I was terrified that doing the movie would take me backward,” she revealed. “But I had to remind myself that they hired me to tell a story, not to be a certain weight. In the end, it was a gift to be able to step back into shoes I had once worn but from a more mature place.”
At the Sundance Film Festival in January 2017, Collins told IMDb Studio about her experience preparing for the role. “It did require a different set of emotional skills, to kind of go back in time for me, with you know, my experiences,” she said at the time. “So definitely a different type of film for me to do, very, very personal.”
The author, the daughter of singer Phil Collins, recently opened up to Us Weekly about the nature of her disorder. “When you’re in it, it’s consuming. It’s overwhelming. Like I say in the book, you get used to being the girl with the eating disorder or someone that has a problem. It starts to define who you are,” she exclusively told Us. “But when you step outside that and you’re able to disassociate with it, you realize just how much stronger and healthier you are, and how titles don’t define you.”
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