Tara Reid: “I should have made wiser choices”
Actress Tara Reid opens up about her former wild past, the reality behind her shrinking frame and her plans to start a family
he had the perfect S springboard for success: classic Hollywood looks, acting talent and strong ambition, but after making a name for herself with a lead role in American Pie in the late ’90s, things didn’t go to plan for Tara Reid.
The now 42-year-old actress suffered a spectacular fall from grace – and admits to Closer she would have made different choices if she had her time again.
Texas-born Tara says, “I would do a lot of stuff differently. I wouldn’t have gone out as much and been so crazy. When I started out, I wasn’t aware I would lose all my privacy, so I was doing everything that your average 21 year old does, but it was there for everyone to see.
PLASTIC SURGERY HELL
“I should have made wiser choices about where to go and what to do, because that kind of all caught up on me and it changed everything.”
After appearing in adverts and landing minor child acting roles, Tara moved to Hollywood at 21, and had her big break when she landed parts in The Big Lebowski in 1997 and as quintessential high-school girl Vicky in American Pie two years later. She looked set on the path to stardom, alongside contemporaries Reese Witherspoon and Kate Hudson, but struggled to replicate the success of her first two hits.
As well as a series of film flops, Tara built up a reputation for her wild partying and became known for stumbling out of nightclubs, blurry-eyed, and slurring her words in interviews. Her life took an even more dramatic turn when she went to rehab for her alcohol addiction in 2008.
Over the years, she’s also hit the headlines over her body issues. In 2004, Tara had a joint liposuction and breast enhancement operation, which went wrong and left her looking, in her words, “bulgy” and “horrifying”. She’s been endlessly mocked for her surgery choices and, in recent years, has raised eyebrows over her wardrobe malfunctions and fluctuating weight.
And the star – whose shrinking frame has led to concerns over her well-being – says the cruel comments have reduced her to tears.
She admits, “At first, when I was younger, I’d read the comments online and my feelings would be hurt. I would cry and think, ‘Why would they say that?’ I could never understand how people who don’t really know you could be mean about you. I still get thousands of negative comments on social media every day – my friends get upset about one or two, and I’m like, ‘Dude, I get thousands’.
“Nowadays, I’ve developed thicker skin and feel that what hasn’t killed me has made me stronger. But things like trolling and cyber bullying need to stop. People have killed themselves over it – it’s come to a point where it has to get better and people have to start being nicer to each other.”
Tara, who’s currently starring in the latest film in a franchise about a shark disaster in LA, The Last Sharknado, recently hit back at body-shamers, saying in an interview, “People always say I don’t eat. I eat all the time. They call me scary skinny… Everyone knows I eat more than anyone. I’m just a thin girl.”
FAST METABOLISM
And she’s just as resolute when we broach the subject with her. “It’s annoying,” she says. “It’s so bad that when I’m out to lunch, some people will even take pictures of me eating. My friends find it more ridiculous than anyone, because they’ll tell you I eat a lot and I just have a really fast metabolism. People make fun of me and say ‘Eat a burger’, and I’m like, ‘Dude, I had two today!’ If I didn’t eat, I wouldn’t have lived to be 42 years old and I would’ve died years ago – so everyone needs to get over it.”
Engaged three times – once to American TV presenter Carson Daly – Tara is now rumoured to be dating American
businessman Ted Dhanik. And while she’s keeping tight-lipped on the romance, she does concede she’s the happiest she’s been in years – and isn’t ruling out marriage and children.
LIFE BALANCE
She says, “I’m in a good place at the moment. I’m happy because of the balance in my life... everything that I’ve wanted is coming to me and it’s a good feeling. My career’s picking up again and I’m really busy, but I do see marriage happening in the future for me. And I think about kids for sure – all my friends who have kids say it’s the greatest thing, so I’d like to one day.”
‘People take pictures of me eating’