Taylor Lautner Revealed The Body Image Issues That He Had Because Of "Twilight"

This post contains discussion of body image issues.

You know Taylor Lautner.

And you also know that he rose to fame while playing Jacob in the Twilight film series.

As Jacob, Taylor was sort of notorious for taking his shirt off during the Twilight films. Here's a whole compilation of those scenes, if you needed proof:

In a recent podcast interview with his wife, Tay Dome Lautner, Taylor talked about how the intense training regimen he had to maintain during the Twilight series affected his own perception of body image.

“When I was in it, when I was 16 through 20 years old, starring in this franchise where my character is known for taking his shirt off every other second, no, I did not know that it was affecting me or going to affect me in the future with body image,” he said.

“But now looking back at it, of course it did, and of course it is going to.”

Taylor also talked about the training regimen that he had to maintain for the Twilight films, which included being “forced to be in a gym multiple times a day, six days a week."

"That wasn’t my natural body," he said. "I had to work very hard for it and very, very hard just to maintain it.”

After Taylor's commitment to the franchise ended, he found himself “rebelling against the gym” almost immediately.

“What happens when you don’t want to see a gym?" he asked. "You start losing the eight pack. I started having more normal of a body.”

Taylor also mused about the online reaction to his changing body, calling it "rough" — especially after he filmed the 2016 movie, Run the Tide.

"My character in that is not supposed to be a bodybuilder or ripped guy in any way," he explained. "I thought I looked fine. But then seeing it online where they put the side-by-sides of me shirtless in the ocean in a scene from that movie compared to me in Eclipse or whatever and being like, ‘Wow, he’s let it all go.’"

"I was like, ‘Oh, man. Did I really let it all go?’ I didn’t think I looked that bad."

Listen to the entire interview here.

The National Eating Disorders Association helpline is 1-800-931-2237; for 24/7 crisis support, text “NEDA” to 741741.