I’ve been battling eating disorder since the age of 14 says Downton’s Lady Sybil
AS Lady Sybil Crawley, she was perhaps Downton Abbey’s most glamorous toff.
But such self-possession has not come as easily to Jessica Brown Findlay, the actress who played her.
The 27-year-old disclosed yesterday that she has been hiding an eating disorder since she was 14 – and blamed the pressure young people feel to conform to society’s ideas of beauty and success.
The former ballerina, who danced for a summer season with the Kirov Ballet at the Royal Opera House in London when she was only 15, said she hoped that admitting to her own issues would help others in the same boat, and called for ‘mature conversation’ about depression.
She added: ‘I’m doing Hamlet, and it explores a lot about mental health, and... I’ve had an eating disorder since I was 14.
‘We can feed ideas of what beauty is and what success is. There has to come a time where those aren’t the rules. Then we can have a mature conversation about depression.’
Miss Findlay said keeping her eating disorder secret for so long had been an isolating experience, adding: ‘I felt so alone, I just hid.
‘It’s about learning to stand up and say, I’m not going to be a better actor if I’m a dress size smaller. It’s nothing to do with my brain.’
The actress said she had been in therapy and told the Daily Telegraph: ‘The more we have brave discussions like that, the easier it is to talk about things, and the less alone we can feel. It’s made me feel less alone.’
Miss Findlay, currently on the London stage in Hamlet, returns to our TV screens on Monday in ITV Encore’s drama Harlots, about prostitution in London during the 18th century.