Zoë Kravitz is opening up like never before about her decade-long eating disorder that started when she was 13 years old.
The Big Little Lies star first revealed her struggles with bulimia and anorexia a few years ago — but in her new cover story for the July issue of British Vogue, the 30-year-old shared some insight into why she became so obsessed with her weight.
Looking back on that time, Zoë said her eating disorder “came from a lot of things” growing up. The biggest contributing factor, though, was constantly being surrounded by beautiful, thin women.
Many of these women were supermodels her father Lenny Kravitz was always with. However, the actress admitted that it was one woman in particular who made her feel especially “clunky” by comparison: her mother, Lisa Bonet.
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She explained to the mag:
“My mother was so beautiful and so tiny, I always felt clunky around her, and then my dad was always surrounded by supermodels… I was short, and you feel uncomfortable in your skin anyway at that age.”
Oof. That’s the downside to having sexy celeb parents, y’all. The awkward teen years hit hard.
Zoë’s rockstar dad had dated Adriana Lima from 2001 to 2003, right around the time when she was at the age where her eating disorder began. So, she wasn’t just dealing with the unrealistic expectations of Victoria’s Secret angels in magazines, like most teens: the poor girl had to face it in the flesh!
The starlet previously opened up about her eating disorders in a 2015 interview with Complex magazine, in which she revealed that those old struggles were triggered when she filmed the 2013 movie The Road Within.
In that interview, Zoë explained that playing an anorexic twenty-something for the film caused her illness to resurface and get out of hand. She said at the time:
“My parents got really scared for me to go back down that road… I went through eating disorders in high school, so it triggered some old stuff. I was so thin that I wasn’t getting my period. And part of me didn’t want to gain the weight back, which was really scary. People were like, ‘You look so good!’ I was like, Oh, my God, that is disturbing.”
Zoë revealed that she was so determined to lose weight for the role, she became very sick: the actress didn’t get her period regularly, her immune system shut down, and her thyroid was thrown off.
She remembered:
“It was f**ked up, man. You could see my rib cage. I was just trying to lose more weight for the film but I couldn’t see: You’re there. Stop. It was scary.”
Wow.
Thankfully, she’s fully recovered and healthy as ever these days.
[Image via WENN]
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