As the daughter of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore, Tallulah Willis grew up with a fortunate life…that ultimately became her downfall. Over the summer, the 20-year-old entered rehab for substance abuse and an eating disorder, and is now opening up about her journey.
“I was in a New York hotel room when I was 13, looking at a photo of myself online,” she writes in a piece for Teen Vogue. “I broke down in tears as I started to read the comments. I thought, I am a hideous, disgusting-looking person. I might be nice and I might be kind, but I’m a really unattractive human being. In that moment, a switch flipped. It wasn’t about the anonymous cyber bullies — I became my own worst critic.”
The aspiring model adds that her eating disorder began when she “got boobs,” and that partying began in high school. “There was always something that I believed would fix things,” she explains. “Some way I could avoid being myself.”
By college, Tallulah says her depression worsened, and she goes into detail describing the horrific time. “I didn’t sleep or want to talk to anyone, nothing seemed to have a point, the world lost its color and food lost its taste,” she writes. “I was so removed from my body and my mind that it was like I was living in a cardboard replica of what life should be. Not even so much because I was doing drugs but because I was so sad and so unhappy.”
With help from her sister, Scout Willis, Tallulah finally entered inpatient treatment for 45 days. “I can say that I’m getting to that place where I’m starting to feel okay with myself, bit by bit,” she admits. “It’s not night and day — it’s not like now I completely love myself and I have no problems. That isn’t how it works. But there are the starting parts of that, and that’s really exciting. I’m growing every day and breaking old patterns.”
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