Christina Applegate has opened up about something that she went years without speaking about publicly: struggling with an eating disorder. The actress, now 52, spoke about having and recovering from anorexia on her MeSsy podcast with Jamie-Lynn Sigler. While on the sitcom Married… with Children, Christina said she "just deprived myself of food." This continued for years, until she was in her 30s.
During the podcast, she explained that her mom's concerns about her body impacted her as well.
She said her mom put her in WeightWatchers when she was 15 years old and just getting started on Married… with Children. Her mom was also "competitive" with her, she revealed.
“If I got down to 110 [pounds]… she’d be like, ‘Oh! I’m so mad! How’d you do it? How’d you get down to 110?'" Christina explained, speaking of her mom. However, the reason she was able to "get down to 110" was because she was struggling with an eating disorder.
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Christina's behavior on the Married… with Children set was concerning to everyone around her. When she portrayed Kelly Bundy, she wore revealing clothing. On the podcast, she explained that dressing the way she did on the show was her idea, but she said, "I kind of shot myself in the foot because then I had to wear those outfits."
"And I wanted my bones to be sticking out, so I didn't eat," she continued, adding that it was "very scary to everyone on set."
"They were like: ‘Christina never eats.’ And I didn’t," she revealed.
She described living with anorexia as "torture" and said she would "punish" herself if she ate. She never struggled with bulimia, she clarified. "I just deprived myself of food for years and years and years," she said.
She also recalled a moment when she was trying on clothes that were a size zero. Since "a little sliver of my skin was hanging over the side," she thought she looked fat and told her friend about it.
"She literally grabbed me and said, 'Stop it. You sound insane.' But, to me, I was enormous," she recalled.
Her eating disorder was something that she struggled with for years — and it can even be challenging today, especially because of her multiple sclerosis diagnosis.
She explained that the "demon in [her] head" has been bothering her. "It's always a little bit there, when you lived with anorexia as long as I did in my early life," she explained.
Her recovery process began in her 30s when she "was sitting on the toilet" and "saw only bones." "It scared the s— out of me," she admitted.
At that point, she tried to start eating more, but it wasn't easy.
“I’d get a smoothie, but I could only drink a third of it. I’d have to throw it out. I’d have to put sugar on my salty food and salt on my sugary food. I would destroy my food so I wouldn’t eat it," she explained.
Though she has made a lot of progress over the years, her body image issues are ongoing — they "plague" her because she has struggled for so long.
“I need to be aware of it so I don’t start falling into bad habits of hurting myself,” she said.
