Demi Lovato and Miley Cyrus, two very open and body-positive individuals, hopped on an Instagram live stream earlier this week —maintaining their social distancing — to discuss some of the body image struggles they have faced throughout their careers.
In this midst of the coronavirus pandemic, Demi Lovato and Miley Cyrus have been social distancing themselves.
But to keep things interesting for themselves and their fans, they took to Instagram live to catch up and discuss something they’ve both personally faced: Body image struggles.
Demi has actually been talking about this a lot lately.
Just last month on Ashley Graham’s podcast, Pretty Big Deal , she opened up about how having an eating disorder ultimately contributed to her infamous drug overdose of 2018.
Thankfully, since then, she has come a LONG way, and we are so happy for her!
She began by explaining the brand new, healthy approach she is taking to her career.
“I don’t have to be in a one-piece leotard on stage,” she said. “Because I’m tired of running myself into the ground with workouts and extreme dieting.”
She added that there were times she thought she had recovered from her eating disorder but had actually just succumbed to it even more.
“Thought the past few years was recovery from an eating disorder, when it actually was just completely falling into it,” she said.
While in the past, she would binge and purge her food, her relapse presented the disorder in the form of over-exercising instead.
The symptoms “weren’t as obvious” as before, she revealed.
“When you don’t have people that know the signs around you … like, what I think I really needed was someone to come in and saying like, ‘Hey, I think you need to look into how much you’re working out,’ like, maybe three times a day is excessive for working out.”
“Like, there were days when I lived at the gym, and I would take business meetings at the gym on my breaks from my workouts, and I’d be gross, but at least I didn’t have to leave and shower and I could go right back into my workout,” she continued.
“I’d eat a meal, go workout, eat a meal, go workout. And it’s like, that’s just not happiness to me, that’s not freedom .”
“When you have certain people around you that are telling you certain things, that you should look a certain way, it makes it harder.”
“And I honestly think that’s kind of what led to everything happening over the past year,” she admitted .
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Anyways, she teamed up with her pal, Miley Cyrus, to touch on this topic even more.
First, Miley revealed that she has had insecurities about her body ever since her 2013 VMAs performance — you know the one.
“I basically went through two or three years where I wouldn’t wear shorts. I stopped wearing skirts on stage, all this [expletive] because after the VMAs, and I had on my cute little nude bodysuit, everyone started comparing me to a turkey,” she said.
“I was just so skinny and so pasty and they kept putting me next to this turkey, and I was feeling so bad on myself that I did not wear a bikini for like two years “.
“I felt like having this persona of being the most confident girl on the planet was actually kind of fraud because I was so insecure on the inside,” she added.
“And when I was wearing like my little leotards and things, I had on [expletive] four pairs of tights because I was so insecure .”
Demi chimed in saying, “Oh my god, same! First of all, I’m so sad that you went through that and I had no idea.”
“Like, I would’ve—I wish I could’ve been there for you but I didn’t know. I feel like we’ve gone through times where we’re closer and [more] distant, and that’s fine, that’s what friends do.”
“I just wish I could’ve been there for you, but like if that ever [expletive] happens again, you better call me. I’ll walk to Malibu, I swear,” she said.
Miley added, fondly reminiscing on their friendship.
“We can not talk forever and then some [expletive] will go down, and I’ll just know you’re the person I want to reach out to.”
“You’ve always been such a light,” Demi replied. “That’s why we connected at 14. We connected then because we just saw something in each other. Maybe it was because of spirituality or maybe it was just our hearts, I don’t know.”
“Or maybe we were just gay as [expletive],” Miley said , as Demi burst out laughing .
To wrap up their live session, the two pop stars offered some wise words to their fans.
“Right now when we’re home with our mirrors and things like that, it’s so important not to get consumed in negative self-talk and this goes for anybody, whether you’ve dealt with body image or not, we’re confined into these spaces,” Demi said .
“We’re going to see the same mirrors everyday. We’re going to have some of these same negative thoughts,” she added.
“It’s important not to beat ourselves up over getting nervous, over maybe not you know, eating perfectly, not working out perfectly.”
“These are different, very scary times. And we’ve never been through anything like this in our lives so this is all new to everyone and it’s ok. Be gentle with yourself. And just take care of yourself as much as possible
