Tallulah Willis may seem to have everything going for her, but she didn’t always feel that way.
Willis, 20, opens up about her struggle with self esteem in a frank video for Stylelikeu, undressing herself on camera as she explains how being the daughter of Hollywood royalty Demi Moore and Bruce Willis wasn’t always a fairy tale.
Ben Horton/Getty
“I’m diagnosed with body dysmorphia [because of] reading those stupid f—ing tabloids when I was like 13, feeling like I was just ugly, always,” she says in the video. “I believed the strangers more than the people who loved me, because why would the people who love me be honest?” The public scrutiny shaped Willis’s style, leading her to wear provocative clothes to emphasize her body and hide the face she hated.
“That made me start to dress really with showing off my boobs and butt, and showing off those things that I was getting attention for,” she explains. “I remember specifically one day putting on a button-up and … having long pants on … and feeling so beautiful. And that was a mindf— for me, the fact that all the attention had to be on my face, and that was so scary for me, because I already wanted to distract people. And by the time I realized that wasn’t who I was anymore, it was like I was trapped in this body and I hated that I was sexy.”
So she pulled a dangerous 180°, starving herself and dropping down to 95 lbs. in an attempt to shed her sensual look. “When I lost my curves and my boobs shriveled up into nothing, and I had no shape and I was just saggy skin everywhere, I was like ‘Hey, believe me now?'” she says. “But I viewed super-skinny me as smart, intelligent. I was able to have the physical transformation so everyone could see me differently.”
Thankfully, the Clothing Coven fashion blogger is learning to love every inch of herself, from her body to her face to her soul.
PHOTOS: Get hair inspiration from these celebrities’ stunning styles!
She also has the support of her famous family, from her stunning mom who preaches self-acceptance to her 23-year-old sister Scout, who’s so confident that she strutted the streets of NYC topless to promote body positivity.
Now, Willis hopes to help other women through her writing and sharing her own story. “If I can use any of the pain that I’ve gone through, and if … when other girls read it they can be healed a little, even if it’s the smallest piece, by something I’ve written or the way I’ve written it, that’s very, very important to me.”
Watch the whole video below to see Willis bare her soul while she bares her (healthy and beautiful!) body, then tell us: Does Willis’s story inspire you? What part of yourself did you feel most insecure about as a teen — and how did you overcome that?
–Michele Corriston
- Comment
