Lili Reinhart is getting real about a difficult time in her life.
In a new interview published with Self on Wednesday, the actress, who has been open in the past about her struggles with body dysmorphia and “severe” body image issues, revealed she developed an eating disorder while working on Riverdale. And more recently she’s been battling a mystery medical condition!
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It all began in 2022 when Lili started to experience some unexplained gut problems and weight gain. She was tested for Celiac disease, a chronic autoimmune disorder triggered by the gluten found in wheat, barley, rye, and other foods. She was also tested for Crohn’s disease, an autoimmune disease that causes swelling and inflammation in the digestive tract. However, those were not the cause of her symptoms, and no tests could tell doctors what was going on. Lili recalled:
“I’ve done all of them. And my gut’s still like, ‘Hey, bitch, you got something. You just can’t figure out what it is.’”
During this time, she developed an eating disorder. Lili shared with the outlet that she struggled a lot on the set of Riverdale as she “disassociated” and only thought about her body most of the time:
“I really don’t like looking at season six imagery or pictures, because I know that 99% of my thoughts were about my body. I was a thousand percent just disassociated through that entire day or scene because my entire inner dialogue is just… ‘Your body’s changing.’”
Heartbreaking.
From there, her health issues worsened. When her hair started falling out and her scalp became “itchy” earlier this year, she went to a dermatologist who diagnosed her with alopecia. But that’s not all. Everything came to a head in July when she “developed symptoms of a UTI” on the third night of filming a movie in Germany. She went to a hospital, where doctors found a “slight infection” and sent her home with antibiotics. However, the urge to pee did not go away:
“The second I’m done peeing, I still feel like I have to pee, but my pee is showing up with no infection.”
She went to the hospital two more times, thinking she only had a UTI. That was not the case. After undergoing multiple procedures, including a cystoscopy, her doctors determined she had “no tumors, no cysts, just a lot of inflammation” and diagnosed her with interstitial cystitis, a chronic disorder that causes a person’s bladder or bladder wall to become irritated and inflamed. Now she’s undergoing weekly bladder instillations, meaning her doctor inserts a catheter with medicine into the urethra to help relax her pelvic and bladder muscles in the hopes of treating her symptoms:
“No one ever knows what that is when I talk about it. But my urogyno is telling me so many women have this, and that’s why I think it’s as important as it is to just be like, ‘Hey, I’m dealing with it too.’”
Wow. Lili has been through so much over the past few years. We’re sending her so much love and strength as she continues to battle her chronic disorder. You can read up on her health journey HERE and see pictures from “the hardest year” of her life (below):
If you’re struggling with an eating disorder, there is help available. Consider visiting https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/ or call their hotline at (800)-931-2237 for resources.
[Image via Lili Reinhart/Instagram, Riverdale/Warner Bros. Television]