Taylor Swift revealed that public opinion about her body led her to an eating disorder.
The 30-year-old singer opened up about the struggle in her new documentary Miss Americana that premiered at Sundance Film Festival on Thursday evening.
The film opened up with a series of comments that the world has made about her throughout her career with comments such as ‘She’s too skinny. It bothers me,’ which then caused the 30-year-old singer to take matters into her own hands.
‘It’s not good for me to see pictures of myself every day,’ the Lover singer said in a voiceover during the film as she is surrounded by a massive amount of photographers.
Miss Americana: In Taylor Swift’s new documentary Miss Americana that premiered at Sundance Film Festival on Thursday evening, the singer opened up about how the public’s opinion about her body eventually took its toll.
And all the pieces fall: The film opened up with a series of comments that the world has made about her throughout her career with comments such as ‘She’s too skinny. It bothers me,’ which then caused the 30-year-old singer to take matters into her own hands
‘It’s only happened a few times, and I’m not in any way proud of it.’
She went on to say that there were moments when she would see ‘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.’
And during an interview with Variety that evening, she went on to say: ‘I didn’t know if I was going to feel comfortable with talking about body image and talking about the stuff I’ve gone through in terms of how unhealthy that’s been for me — my relationship with food and all that over the years.’
‘But the way that Lana [Wilson, the film’s director] tells the story, it really makes sense. 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. 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.’
Back then: ‘It’s not good for me to see pictures of myself every day,’ the Lover singer said in a voiceover during the film as she is surrounded by a massive amount of photographers
‘I remember how, when I was 18, that was the first time I was on the cover of a magazine,’ she says. ‘And 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,’ she said in the documentary recalling an early-on moment in her career.
‘And then I’d walk into a photoshoot and be in the dressing room and somebody who worked at a magazine would say, ‘Oh, wow, this is so amazing that you can fit into the sample sizes. Usually we have to make alterations to the dresses, but we can take them right off the runway and put them on you!’ 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.’
‘I think I’ve never really wanted to talk about that before, and I’m pretty uncomfortable talking about it now,’ she admitted.
‘But in the context of every other thing that I was doing or not doing in my life, I think it makes sense’ she said talking about sharing her struggles in the documentary.
Trouble, Trouble: ‘I remember how, when I was 18, that was the first time I was on the cover of a magazine,’ she says. ‘And 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,’ she said in the documentary recalling an early-on moment in her career
So It Goes… ‘I think I’ve never really wanted to talk about that before, and I’m pretty uncomfortable talking about it now,’ she admitted during the film
Lana Wilson was proud of Swift for taking the leap and opening up saying: ‘That’s one of my favorite sequences of the film. I was surprised, of course. But I love how she’s kind of thinking out loud about it. And every woman will see themselves in that sequence. I just have no doubt.’
‘You can also just not notice people being really skinny, because we’re all so accustomed to seeing women on magazine covers who are unhealthy-skinny, and that’s become normalized,’ she added.
‘It’s incessant, and I can say this as a woman: It’s amazing to me how people are constantly like ‘You look skinny’ or ‘You’ve gained weight.’ People you barely know say this to you. And it feels awful, and you can’t win either way. So I think it’s really brave to see someone who is a role model for so many girls and women be really honest about that. I think it will have a huge impact.’
Style: She’s got that red lip classic thing that fans like as she struts the stage in 2015 during her 1989 World Tour
Ready for it? The Grammy winner beamed from ear to ear while on stage in Japan back in November 2018
Swift then compared her stamina during her 1989 tour to her Reputation era in which she revealed that cutting back on food affected her while on stage.
‘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 Netflix original movie. ‘Now I realize, no, if you eat food, have energy, get stronger, you can do all these shows and not feel (enervated).’
And now, she’s okay with ‘the fact that I’m a size 6 instead of a size double-zero.’
‘If you’re thin enough, then you don’t have that ass that everybody wants,’ she says in the documentary.
‘But if you have enough weight on you to have an ass, your stomach isn’t flat enough. It’s all just f**ing impossible.’
Look What You Made Her Do: Swift works the stage In Phoenix, Arizona back in May 2018