Jameela Jamil has opened up about her struggles with anorexia, and how taking laxatives “destroyed’ her body.
The Good Place actress spoke out about her eating disorder and body dysmorphia during a recent appearance on Kelly Ripa’s podcast Let’s Talk Off Camera.
“I’m amazed I even still have an asshole, to be perfectly honest,” she quipped about tacking laxatives. “It’s a real trooper. It’s a survivor. I took any pill or drink or diet that Oprah recommended. I did it. I took it. You know, any very low-calorie supermodel diet.”
Jamil went on to say that these medications not only damaged her physical health at the time, but still have an impact on her body today.
“I fucked up my kidney, my liver, my digestive system, my heart,” she said. “And most recently, I found out that I have destroyed my bone density.”
The actress acknowledged that although she “loves blaming other people” and “society” for her eating disorder, she still takes accountability for how she has treated herself during her anorexia.
“And I’m so sorry to my body that I have jeopardised my future so severely for a beauty standard and to try to fit in with other people,” she continued. “And that’s why I’m so annoying, publicly, about eating disorders and diets. Because there’s so much talk about the dangers of being in a bigger body and there’s no talk almost about the dangers of not eating enough, only eating too much.”
Jameela Jamil. CREDIT: Jared Siskin/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images
Emphasising the importance of people being vocal about their health, and specifically eating disorders, she continued: “We have no idea the way that people’s fertility is fucked, the way their long-term health is fucked. We just don’t talk about it and it’s an inconvenient truth that the diet industry kind of squashes.”
She concluded: “So I want to be someone who reminds people to eat. Don’t eat for your waistline now, eat for your longevity later.”
This isn’t the first time that Jamil has spoken out about her body dysmorphia. In 2019, she took to X/Twitter to recall how her feelings about her appearance made her want to skip a celebrity event.
“This was a sad day 10 years ago,” she wrote, alongside a photo of herself at a party hosted by Burberry in 2009. “I didn’t want to go to the event because I was convinced that I was ‘too fat’ and that I would be publicly fat-shamed the next day.”
Last year, Jamil hit out feminist celebrities for celebrating “known bigot” Karl Lagerfeld at the 2023 Met Gala.
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