Taylor Swift is opening up publicly for the first time about her struggles with body image and an eating disorder. Swift’s new documentary
Taylor Swift: Miss Americana premiered at the Sundance Film Festival January 24 and included a section of the film where Swift reveals just how bad things got with her weight.
E! News reports that in the doc, Swift said that paparazzi photos would often trigger her disorder. Saying that “it’s not good for me to see pictures of myself every day,” Swift admitted that there would times when what she believed to be an unflattering picture would prompt her to stop eating.“It's only happened a few times, and I'm not in any way proud of it," Swift says in the doc. "A picture of me where I feel like I looked like my tummy was too big, or someone said that I looked pregnant. And that'll just trigger me to just starve a little bit—just stop eating."During her 1989 Tour, Swift was wearing a size double-zero and barely eating. “I thought that I was supposed to feel like I was going to pass out at the end of a show, or in the middle of it,” she said
in the doc. “Now I realize, no, if you eat food, have energy, get stronger, you can do all these shows and not feel (enervated).” Causing what she describes as a hate/shame spiral, Swift said that once she realized something was wrong, it was still difficult to rectify the conflicting messages she was receiving. “If you’re thin enough, then you don’t have that ass that everybody wants,” says Swift. “But if you have enough weight on you to have an ass, your stomach isn’t flat enough. It’s all just f******g impossible.”[video_embed id='1884552']RELATED: Taylor Swift's doc receives a standing ovation at Sundance[/video_embed]
Speaking to
Variety about her eating disorder, Swift says that it began in her teens and pinpointed one tabloid headline that accused the then-18-year-old of being pregnant because of the outfit she was wearing on the cover of her first magazine. “The headline was like ‘Pregnant at 18?' And it was because I had worn something that made my lower stomach look not flat. So, I just registered that as a punishment."Swift says that she was often praised for her slim frame, with stylists at photoshoots telling the singer that it was "so amazing" that she could fit into sample sizes. "And I looked at that as a pat on the head. You register that enough times, and you just start to accommodate everything towards praise and punishment, including your own body." Eventually, this praise began influencing Swift’s eating habits. "And my relationship with food was exactly the same psychology that I applied to everything else in my life: If I was given a pat on the head, I registered that as good. If I was given a punishment, I registered that as bad."Even though she’s now comfortable with her size, Swift adds that she was hesitant to discuss her eating disorder on film. The singer credits
Good Place actor and activist Jameela Jamil and
Miss Americana director Lana Wilson for helping her see the positive side of coming forward with her struggle.
“I'm not as articulate as I should be about this topic because there are so many people who could talk about it in a better way. But all I know is my own experience,” says Swift. "I think I've never really wanted to talk about that before, and I'm pretty uncomfortable talking about it now. But in the context of every other thing that I was doing or not doing in my life, I think it makes sense to have it in the film."
Taylor Swift: Miss Americana will be released in select theatres and begin streaming on Netflix January 31.[video_embed id='1855879']RELATED: Taylor Swift celebrated her 30th birthday, but is it a big deal?[/video_embed]
