Christina Applegate reveals she had anorexia on “Married With Children”, wanted 'bones to be sticking out'

"I just deprived myself of food for years and years and years," Applegate said on the "MeSsy" podcast with Jamie-Lynn Siegler.

Christina Applegate is opening up for the first time about her lifelong struggle with body image issues and anorexia, revealing on the latest episode of her MeSsy podcast with Jamie-Lynn Sigler that she put herself through "torture" over her weight on the set of her hit sitcom Married With Children.

The 52-year-old told Sigler — who, like Applegate, was also recently diagnosed with multiple sclerosis — that she's "never discussed it in public" when she revealed that she battled her eating disorder from the age of eight until her thirties.

"That demon in my head is coming back really loud, and it's scaring me. It hasn't been there for a long time. It's always a little bit there, when you lived with anorexia as long as I did in my early life. It always plagues me, body dysmorphia and all of those things," she said at the top of the episode.

She added: "They're still always there. I don't look in mirrors. Obviously something that people don't know, I have writing all over my mirrors in my bathroom so that I don't look in them, because I will fall on the ground and cry. That's how I feel now. That is today, this isn't 20-something-year-old Christina. That is the girl who gained 45 pounds when she got [MS]."

The Dead to Me actress said she first heard the word "fat" when she was eight, when a childhood friend poked fun at her weight. She said her mother was also obsessed with her own weight, and the fixation passed on to Applegate.

Related: Married...With Children cast: Where are they now?

"I finally had an eating disorder. I would eat five almonds in a day, and if I had six, I would cry and I wouldn't want to leave the house. That stuck with me for years," she said.

"I played Kelly Bundy [on Married With Children], and it was my idea to wear those outfits because I was so amazed by this rock culture and rock sluts, I thought it was the most hilarious thing I'd ever seen," continued Applegate. "I kind of shot myself in the foot because then I had to wear those outfits, and I wanted my bones to be sticking out. So I didn't eat. It was very scary to everyone on set because they were like, 'Christina never eats,' and I didn't."

Applegate called her struggle "a way of life," and noted that she'd punish herself when she ate.

"I just deprived myself of food for years and years and years. It was torture. It was f---ing torture. I remember being a size zero at one point, I was trying clothes on at Fred Segal, I was trying on these zeros, and a little sliver of my skin was hanging over the side and I said to my friend, 'Oh, God, no, I look too fat in these.' She literally grabbed me and said, 'Stop it. You sound insane.' But, to me, I was enormous," she remembered. "They were taking in zeros on my show, Jesse, the second season. Taking in zeros because I'd gotten so thin."

The Emmy-winning star admitted that the disorder lasted for decades, and that she didn't finally start to address it in a meaningful way until she was "sitting on the toilet" and "saw only bones" in her body.

"It scared the s--- out of me. I tried so hard to bring in calories," she said. "I'd get a smoothie, but I could only drink a third of it. I'd have to throw it out. I'd have to put sugar on my salty food and salt on my sugary food. I'd destroy my food so I wouldn't eat it."

Related: Christina Applegate slams Candace Owens' 'f---ing gross' criticism of wheelchair model in underwear ad

Since going public with her MS diagnosis, Applegate previously hit out at people on social media criticizing her appearance.

In January 2023, she spoke out against a woman who criticized her appearance on a red carpet.

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"Of course I told her that it wasn't nice. This was her reply," Applegate tweeted at the time, showing the woman's response to her note in a private message. "What is wrong with people? By the way, I laughed."

Listen to Applegate and Sigler discuss their history with eating disorders in the podcast episode above.

If you or someone you know is struggling with  an eating disorder, please go to NationalEatingDisorders.org. If you or someone you know needs mental health help, text "STRENGTH" to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 to be connected to a certified crisis counselor.

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.