Taylor Swift Opened Up For The First Time About Her Eating Disorder In Candid Scenes From Her New Documentary

    Taylor admitted in the documentary that she often "wasn't eating" to the point of feeling like she was about to pass out on stage.

    Ellie Woodward
    by Ellie Woodward

    BuzzFeed Staff

    Taylor Swift has opened up for the first time publicly about her experience with an eating disorder.

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    In scenes from her documentary, Miss Americana, which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival on Thursday night, Taylor revealed that she would often restrict her eating to the point of feeling she was about to pass out on stage.

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    She said: "I thought I was supposed to feel like I was going to pass out at the end of a show, or in the middle of it. Now I realise, no, if you eat food, have energy, get stronger, you can do all these shows and not feel enervated."

    Taylor, 30, went on to say that she's felt under constant pressure to meet a "fucking impossible" standard of beauty throughout her career.

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    She explained: "There's always some standard of beauty that you're not meeting. Because, if you're thin enough, then you don't have that ass that everybody wants. But if you have enough weight on you to have an ass, then your stomach isn't flat enough. It's all just fucking impossible."

    She also revealed that when her eating disorder was at its worst, she would make lists of everything she ate, exercised constantly, and routinely "wasn't eating."

    And while Taylor now accepts she's "no longer a size double 0" and fights the urge to be critical about her body, she still avoids looking at photos of herself in case it's triggering.

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    She said: "It's better to think you look fat than to look sick. I tend to get triggered by something — whether it’s a picture of me where I feel like my tummy looked too big, or someone said that I looked pregnant or something. And that will trigger me to just starve a little bit, just stop eating."

    Taylor went on to elaborate on the subject further during an interview with Variety in conjunction with the documentary's release and recalled the formative moment that affected her body image for a decade.

    "I remember how, when I was 18," she said, "that was the first time I was on the cover of a magazine, and the headline was like, 'Pregnant at 18?' And it was because I had worn something that made my lower stomach look not flat."

    Michael Caulfield

    "So I just registered that as a punishment," she continued. "And then I'd walk into a photo shoot and be in the dressing room and somebody who worked at a magazine would say, ‘Oh, wow, this is so amazing that you can fit into the sample sizes. Usually, we have to make alterations to the dresses, but we can take them right off the runway and put them on you!’ And I looked at that as a pat on the head."

    She added: "You register that enough times, and you just start to accommodate everything towards praise and punishment, including your own body."

    Back in December, Taylor hinted at what was to come in the documentary by opening up for the first time about how she used food as a way of "exerting control" during her twenties.

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    Speaking to Vogue, Taylor said: "I now can really recognise and diagnose toxic messages being sent to me by society, by culture, about my body."

    "I'm a woman, I'm not a coat hanger," she continued. "I need to feel healthy in my life and I need to take pleasure in food and I need to not use my body as an exercise of control when I feel out of control in my life."

    Miss Americana will be released on Netflix on Jan. 31. You can read Taylor Swift's full interview with Variety here.

    For more information on eating disorders and resources that can help, visit the National Eating Disorders Association. The NEDA helpline is 1-800-931-2237; for 24/7 crisis support, text “NEDA” to 741741.