When Brittany Snow turned 23 in 2009, she decided to take a big break from Hollywood in order to focus on her recovery from anorexia after prematurely leaving an inpatient rehab center at age 19.
‘My life depended on it,’ the 39-year-old Hunting Wives star recalled in her SELF cover story Thursday.
‘I mean, there was no way that I would still be here — and I’m trying not to be hyperbolic.’
Brittany – who also battled exercise bulimia, depression and self-harm – enrolled in a year-long outpatient program where she attended meetings, classes, individual therapy and had 24/7 communication with the program director.
Snow was anxious about ordering in restaurants with friends around, but the outpatient program allowed her to ‘rewire my brain where I could count on myself.’
‘I could trust myself,’ the SAG Award nominee said.
When Brittany Snow turned 23 in 2009, she decided to take a big break from Hollywood in order to focus on her recovery from anorexia after prematurely leaving an inpatient rehab center at age 19 (pictured Wednesday)
The 39-year-old Hunting Wives star recalled in her SELF cover story Thursday: ‘My life depended on it. I mean, there was no way that I would still be here — and I’m trying not to be hyperbolic’
‘I could be in a space and feel like I wasn’t going to do something harmful to myself. [It] was the best thing that ever could have happened to my recovery.’
Throughout her teen years, Brittany ‘couldn’t even be naked around myself’ because she had ‘so much disdain for my body’ but now she’s fine with filming explicit sex scenes, laughing: ‘Everyone’s seen me naked.’
Snow said her Hunting Wives castmate Malin Åkerman is ‘so collaborative’ during their sex scenes unlike her past male counterparts who were ‘focused on themselves and how they look and if their abs are looking great.’
On September 14, Netflix renewed the Texas-set drama, based on May Cobb’s 2021 novel, for an eight-episode second season so the Florida-born beauty will be back as Sophie O’Neil.
Brittany continues to see a ‘holistic therapist,’ who does EMDR and a ‘form of hypnotherapy’ to help with any lingering anxieties.
Snow’s two-year marriage to real estate agent Tyler Stanaland ended in 2022 when he suddenly became the star of Netflix’s reality spin-off, Selling the OC.
‘I did not sign up for that,’ the Night Agent actress noted.
‘It felt like it was a running snowball that I couldn’t catch. I didn’t know what the heck was going on because it was so public and I couldn’t control it.’
Brittany – who also battled exercise bulimia, depression and self-harm – enrolled in a year-long outpatient program where she attended meetings, classes, individual therapy and had 24/7 communication with the program director (pictured in 2008)
Snow was anxious about ordering in restaurants with friends around, but the outpatient program allowed her to ‘rewire my brain where I could count on myself’ (pictured in 2007)
!['I could trust myself,' the SAG Award nominee said. 'I could be in a space and feel like I wasn't going to do something harmful to myself. [It] was the best thing that ever could have happened to my recovery'](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/11/06/21/103666497-15267027-image-a-9_1762464777341.jpg "Brittany Snow Took a Break from Hollywood for Recovery: 'My Life Depended on It' 23")
‘I could trust myself,’ the SAG Award nominee said. ‘I could be in a space and feel like I wasn’t going to do something harmful to myself. [It] was the best thing that ever could have happened to my recovery’
Brittany’s anorexia flared up after the divorce from Tyler Stanaland (L, pictured in 2019) was finalized in 2023, but she would talk to herself ‘like a kid’ to get herself to eat and suddenly ‘I started realizing that I was eating whatever I wanted’
Throughout her teen years, Snow ‘couldn’t even be naked around myself’ because she had ‘so much disdain for my body’ but now she’s fine with filming explicit sex scenes, laughing: ‘Everyone’s seen me naked’
The Pitch Perfect alum will next play Matthew Rhys’ onscreen second wife Nina Jarvis in Gabe Rotter’s eight-episode miniseries The Beast in Me – premiering November 13 on Netflix – alongside Claire Danes, Jodie Foster, and Conan O’Brien
Brittany also portrays true-crime podcaster Mandy Matney in Michael D. Fuller and Erin Lee Carr’s eight-episode miniseries Murdaugh: Death in the Family, which airs Wednesdays on Hulu
Brittany cryptically added: ‘I know the truth… That’s all that matters.’
Snow’s anorexia flared up after the divorce was finalized in 2023, but she would talk to herself ‘like a kid’ to get herself to eat and suddenly ‘I started realizing that I was eating whatever I wanted.’
The Pitch Perfect alum will next play Matthew Rhys’ onscreen second wife Nina Jarvis in Gabe Rotter’s eight-episode miniseries The Beast in Me – premiering November 13 on Netflix – alongside Claire Danes, Jodie Foster, and Conan O’Brien.
Brittany also portrays true-crime podcaster Mandy Matney in Michael D. Fuller and Erin Lee Carr’s eight-episode miniseries Murdaugh: Death in the Family, which airs Wednesdays on Hulu.
