Olivia Munn Reveals She's Struggling With Her Body Image During Pregnancy: ‘It’s Really Hard’
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Actress Olivia Munn recently shared that being pregnant has brought back her past body image struggles.
The 41-year-old recounts the time she was told she was “too big” to be on TV and tried to lose weight. She shares how years of body image issues are affecting her current pregnancy.
“It’s just so hard because I will Google search ‘streetwear maternity,’ and a lot of it comes up with these gorgeous women who are super skinny and have this little bump, and everything is effortless.”
Now that actress Olivia Munn is pregnant, she's found her past body insecurities creeping back up. The 41-year-old recently announced she’s expecting her first child with comedian John Mulaney, but during an interview with SiriusXM's Pop Culture Spotlight with Jessica Shaw, she opened up about just how her changing body is affecting her mental health.
“I was called so many things, that I was too big to be on TV,” Munn recalled in the interview. “Then I would start to under-eat, ‘cause I would hear those messages and I would try to take that message myself and be like, ‘fine you think I’m–sure call me fat, I’m fat, sure, whatever.’ I would just let people. I would try to take those things people were calling me and try to own them myself. I was like, ‘Fine you are calling me this, fine,’ and ‘hahaha.’”
But the actress revealed though she tried to shake off the comments at the time, the criticism was hard to ignore. “It wasn’t ‘hahaha.’ I would do that on the surface, but behind the scenes, I was talking to doctors, ‘what can I do to lose weight?’ Asking friends what are their tips and tricks. Asking people, doing anything I can,” Munn said. “Then starting that cycle of eating too much, overeating, under-eating. And then before you know it, it’s like, ‘Oh she is too skinny.’”
The star revealed that those internal struggles have bubbled up again during her pregnancy. “Just being pregnant has brought up all those feelings, because there is so much of a, ‘how am I supposed to do it right,’” she said. “I know there is no right, I understand that. But it’s really hard, especially to have so many images in your face all the time of what truly looks like perfection.”
The Violet actress shared she even reached out to a friend for advice on dressing well in maternity clothes. But her friend didn’t understand that Munn was struggling with body image issues, and directed her to pregnant model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley for inspiration—which is the last thing she needed.
“It’s just so hard because I will Google search ‘streetwear maternity,’ and a lot of it comes up with these gorgeous women who are super skinny and have this little bump, and everything is effortless,” she said. “I don’t have Rosie Huntington-Whiteley’s body at all and that’s kind of...the first step in feeling like, ‘Oh if I am not handling maternity well, if I’m not looking chic and cool and effortless, and if my body is changing like this, that means that I’m failing. That means that I’m already not doing things right.”
Munn also noted that while there is pressure to look a certain way, there's also the constant want to be a good mother, too, of course.
“That’s what I hear a lot ... friends being like, ‘I’m always thinking I’m not a good enough mother,” she said. “It’s already hard enough to feel like you’re not good enough and you can’t forgive yourself for things, and the world doesn’t let you forgive yourself for things, and no matter how much you progress or grow or change that even if the world wants to beat you down that it’s actually easier because you’re like ‘I’ve still been beating myself down for these things that I did 15 years ago, 20 years ago.’”
If you believe you are struggling with an eating disorder and need support, call the National Eating Disorders Association helpline at (800) 931-2237. You can text HOME to 741741 to message a trained crisis counselor from the Crisis Text Line for free.
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