My eating disorder began when I was away from home at college, sparked by a particularly isolating semester and fueled by the deeply ingrained need to be thought of as “good,” a dependence on external approval that Swift and I share. Taylor Swift reveals past struggle with eating disorder But after watching my favorite artist open up about her own experience to an audience of millions, I knew it was time, to borrow one of Swift’s lyrics, to speak now. I’ve barely spoken about it with close friends and family even discussing it in therapy makes me uncomfortable. I’ve never written before about my own battle with anorexia, which dominated and destroyed half a decade of my life. Swift in “Taylor Swift: Miss Americana.” Netflix But in that moment, all I could see was a fellow perfectionist and people-pleaser sharing the destructive downside of the way she’s wired. I don’t have 10 Grammys and hundreds of millions of social media followers to my name, for starters, and as a writer and editor, I’m more accustomed to seeing my name in bylines than headlines. To be sure, my pop-star idol and I lead very different lives. “I don’t think you know that you’re doing that when you’re doing it gradually,” she adds.įor me, a longtime superfan of Swift’s, it hit home harder than any song lyric she’s ever written. What follows is a candid conversation about how her life in the spotlight led her to develop body dysmorphia and, eventually, an eating disorder, with Swift revealing that a single photo snapped from an undesirable angle could cause her “to just starve a little bit - just stop eating.” There’s a scene about a half-hour into “Miss Americana,” Taylor Swift’s new Netflix documentary, where the star emerges from her Tribeca apartment to throngs of fans and paparazzi, slides into the backseat of a waiting car, and says, “I’ve learned over the years it’s not good for me to see pictures of myself every day.” Taylor Swift gives middle finger to 'decimated' Jake Gyllenhaal in video, fans say What happens when your famous ex immortalizes you in a hit song Whitney Houston beef divides Twitter: 'You're delusional' Music labels clamor to buy pricey Sting and David Bowie catalogs