‘Riverdale’ star Lili Reinhart has opened up about her “devastating struggle” with body image issues, revealing how it affected her mental health over the past few months.
In a series of Instagram Stories, Reinhart, 25, posted a “love note” to her body before speaking about her struggles. “I’ve been struggling with obsessive thoughts about my body/weight the last few months and it’s gotten pretty severe in the last week. So I want to take a moment to be vulnerable and share this in the hope that any of you who are also struggling don’t feel so alone,” Reinhart posted.
The actress continued: “It’s challenging to look at your body with love instead of criticism. It’s a practice I’m still learning,” while telling her fans she’s here for them.
Reinhart also spoke up about her struggle with fame. “I didn’t think being in this industry, that is so obsessed with women’s bodies and weights, could ever mess with my own body acceptance and positivity.. but it has,” she wrote.
“I wish I hadn’t grown up in a time where the media worshipped only one size of women,” the actress shared. “My body has carried me through 25 years of life. All my scars, tears, trauma... I wish I could love it more, even when it doesn’t look like it did when I was 20.”
The actress said she is trying while adding that she knows her “body deserves equal love and admiration at any size.”
“To not feel at home in my own skin is a devastating feeling,” Reinhart continued. “As if my body has betrayed me by changing. I’ve looked in the mirror and pulled my skin back tight to see what I *should* look like. What I’m expected to look like.. in an industry where you’re — inconvenient — when not a sample size.”
Calling the system broken, which forces “hundreds of millions of us are so concerned with what our bodies look like,” Reinhart added: “I know I’m not alone in this toxic way of thinking about my body. And it’s heartbreaking that this feeling is understood by so many of us.”
This isn’t the first time the actress has spoken about her struggles. In May last year, Reinhart opened up about living with depression for 11 years.
“Some days I feel really defeated by my depression,” Reinhart wrote on her Instagram Stories at the time. “It’s an exhausting battle that I’ve been fighting for 11 years and some days, like today, it can feel intolerable.”
