Taylor Swift: I starved myself after a magazine said I looked pregnant at 18
Taylor Swift has spoken for the first time about her struggle to overcome an eating disorder.
In a new Netflix documentary the 30year-old pop star tells fans that she is not proud of starving herself.
Miss americana, which debuted on Thursday at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah, sees the singer discuss how seeing photos of herself and reading people’s comments drove her to ‘starve a little bit... just stop eating’ and eventually drop to double size zero – a size two in Britain.
She said: ‘It’s only happened a few times and I’m not in any way proud of it.’
She further discussed the issue in an interview with Variety in which she said she used to see negative comments about her appearance as a ‘punishment’. She said: ‘I remember how, when I was 18,
‘I’m not in any way proud of it’
that was the first time I was on the cover of a magazine, and the headline was “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.’
In the film, photos of Miss Swift promoting her 2014 album 1989 are compared with the healthier physique she displayed during her reputation tour in 2018.
She added that the weight loss also affected her stamina on stage. She said: ‘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.’
The singer said she still feels ‘uncomfortable’ discussing the issue as she does not believe she is ‘as articulate as I should be about this topic’, but said it ‘makes sense’ to include it in the film. Miss Swift says she is a now a ‘size six’ – or a UK size ten.