Christina Applegate has heartbreakingly revealed that she was anorexic during her rise to fame as a teen actress on Married… With Children.
The 52-year-old was just 15 when she was cast on the hit sitcom, where she remained for 10 years and became a household name.
Her mother Nancy Priddy – herself a television actress – enrolled Christina in the Weight Watchers program the year she began her run on the show.
As her star climbed, Christina became so obsessed with being thin that she ‘wanted my bones to be sticking out’ and at times subsisted on ‘five almonds in a day.’
She ‘never discussed’ her struggle with anorexia in public before this week, when she shared her story on her podcast MeSsy.
Christina Applegate has revealed that she was anorexic during her rise to fame as a teen actress on Married… With Children; pictured last year battling multiple sclerosis
The 52-year-old was just 15 when she was cast on the hit sitcom, where she remained for 10 years and became a household name; pictured aged 17 in 1989
Christina co-hosts the podcast with Jamie-Lynn Sigler, who also achieved television stardom as a teenager during her run on The Sopranos.
In recent years, Christina has battled a new series of health problems related to multiple sclerosis, which she was diagnosed with in 2021 after what she has described as ‘six or seven years’ of symptoms.
Her fixation on her weight began ‘when I was a little girl’ and a neighbor boy called her ‘fat’ after touching her thigh, Christina revealed.
The issue was compounded by Nancy, who ‘was obsessed with her weight so she would always say things like: “You could stand to lose 5lbs.”‘
Nancy even became ‘competitive’ with Christina about weight loss, to the point that ‘if I got down to 110, which, I mean, that’s a low number for someone who’s my height, she’d be like: “Oh, I’m so mad! How’d you do it? How’d you get down to 110?”‘
Christina said: ‘And the reason was I finally had an eating disorder. Like, that was the reason. I would eat five almonds in a day, and if I had six I would cry and I wouldn’t wanna leave the house, and that stuck with me for years and years and years.’
While she was playing Kelly Bundy on Married… With Children, Christina wanted to dress like one of the ‘rock sluts’ who had formed a ‘hilarious’ 1980s subculture.
She explained that it was ‘my idea’ to wear revealing costumes as Kelly in order to pay tribute to the ‘rock culture’ she had observed.
Her mother Nancy Priddy – herself a television actress – enrolled Christina in the Weight Watchers program the year she began on the show; Christina and Nancy are pictured in 2009
As her star climbed, Christina became so obsessed with being thin that she ‘wanted my bones to be sticking out’ and subsisted on ‘five almonds in a day’; pictured aged 16 in 1988
By season two of Married… With Children, even her size-zero costumes had to be taken in to fit her; she is pictured in October 1989 while season four was on the air
However, the clothes only amplified her complexes about her figure ‘and I wanted my bones to be sticking out, so I didn’t eat, and it was very scary to everyone on set because they were like: “Christina never eats.” And I didn’t.’
Christina recalled that ‘if I did eat something, I’d punish myself. I was never, you know, bulimic or anything like that. I just deprived myself of food for years and years and years. It was torture. It was f***ing torture.’
Once, when she was trying on a size-zero outfit at Fred Segal, she noticed ‘a little sliver of my skin was hanging over the side.’
‘Oh, God, no, I look too fat in these,’ Christina complained to a gal pal, who took hold of her and admonished her: ‘Stop it! You sound insane.’
However Christina regarded herself as ‘enormous’ and remained fanatically determined to be skinny – so much so that by season two of Married… With Children, even her size-zero costumes had to be taken in to fit her.
Christina (left) is pictured with (from left) David Faustino, Ed O’Neil and Katy Sagal in a 1988 publicity shot for Married… With Children
She received a wake-up call while sitting on the toilet, where she looked at herself and ‘saw only bones,’ which ‘scared the s*** out of me.’
Christina attempted to turn her diet around, saying: ‘I tried so hard to bring in calories, but still, that part of me was like – I’d get a smoothie, but I could only eat a third of it, drink a third of it. Like I’d have to throw it out.’
She explained: ‘I’d have to put sugar on my salty food and salt on my sugary food. I would destroy my food so that I wouldn’t eat it. I would separate them into little bits. It was so methodical.’
The Friends guest star shared that she was in her 30s by the time she managed to get her preoccupation with her weight under control.
