Lily Collins blames her father's marriage split for her eating disorder.
Lily Collins
The 30-year-old actress has been open about her battle with anorexia and bulimia during her teenage years but she has now explained that Phil Collins' separation from third wife Orianne Ceveyn was the catalyst for her disorder.
Speaking to The Weekend Australian magazine, she said: "My life felt out of control. I couldn't handle the pain and confusion surrounding my dad's divorce.
"I was having a hard time balancing being a teenager with pursuing two different grown-up careers - both of which I'd chosen myself but focused heavily on how I looked."
Lily has previously revealed that she feared her eating disorder would stop her from having children.
She shared: "My periods stopped for two years and my life was out of control. I was terrified I had ruined my chances of ever having kids."
In 2017, Lily played an unruly 20-year-old anorexic girl in the Marti Noxon-directed drama 'To the Bone' and the actress admitted the opportunity to star in the movie arrived at the perfect point in her life.
She said: "I'd decided to write a book about my life and, ironically, just as I was starting on the chapter about my eating problems, I was sent the script for 'To The Bone'. It wasn't about me.
"It was a semi-autobiographical film by the American screenwriter and director Marti Noxon about her battle with anorexia. And she had no idea that I'd been through the same thing - not many people did.
"And if that's not a sign from the universe that this is something you need to talk about, I don't know what is. I had already been doing research for my book by reading back in my old journals, looking at old photographs and talking to friends and family about what had happened to me."
And Lily admitted she could see strong parallels between the struggles of her on-screen character and those of her real-life self.
She reflected: "The script rang so true. I thought, 'The person who wrote this really experienced the situation,' and there were definitely some situations I could relate to."
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