“Hairspray” actress Brittany Snow has admitted to an extreme eating disorder, cutting, and depression in a recent interview with the website “Half of Us.” Snow talks about her struggle with weight, which began at the age of 12 when she started the “Eat Right 4 Your Blood Type” diet, after it was recommended by some of her “Guiding Light” adult costars. Wonderful influence. She got a lot of compliments on her weight loss, and the feeling of acceptance and encouragement became addictive. Eventually, she was down to 85 pounds and worried she still wasn’t thin enough.

“Brittany Snow’s descent into the dark world of eating disorders began when she landed the role of Susan Lemay on TV’s Guiding Light, the actress, now 21, tells MTVU.com. ‘I remember looking around at all these women who were on the soap opera who were working out and dieting,’ Snow says. Taking their cue, a 12-year-old Snow tried her first diet, called Eat Right 4 Your Blood Type. ‘I took it to the extreme,’ the Hairspray star admits, which included a two-month stint when she ‘lived on pineapple.’

“After losing 10 lbs. on the diet, Snow says she heard compliments and felt accepted from those around her. Soon it was a feeling she couldn’t get enough of. ‘It kind of progressed into this thing where I needed to always be dieting and losing weight and more weight,’ she says in the site’s interview series Half of Us, which addresses mental health issues and ways to get help. ‘It became my life and I didn’t have any friends and this was definitely my best friend and I held on to it really tight.’

“At 15, Snow was stepping onto the scale 10 to 15 times a day and weighed only 85 lbs. ‘I knew that was a really low number and I knew that my hair was falling out and I had really weird skin. My face looked really weird and I was getting this fuzz on my face and I was always cold – always to the point of uncontrollably shaking,’ she says. But ‘I was more scared that 85 lbs. wasn’t good enough. I wanted to be lower.”

[From People]

Brittany Snow is one of those sorta famous actresses that I never really thought much about, and she’s very pretty in a small, petite person kind of way. I never noticed just how tiny she was until I read this story, and really started looking. That would mean she was obviously struggling with anorexia through much, if not all, of her time on “American Dreams.” Snow says she finally reached the end of her rope when she started cutting herself.

“Rock bottom came when Snow began cutting herself. ‘I would look at the scars and what I had done to myself and that would convince me not to eat,’ she says. ‘I also was crying for attention and I also really wanted someone to see my scars and help me and give me a hug.’

“By 19, Snow was in rehab and things took a turn for the better. She stopped cutting and got help for her depression. ‘But the eating stuff was still really hard to deal with,’ she says. ‘It’s still a struggle.’

“Her advice to girls who are going though a similar situation is to take baby steps. ‘It’s very important to talk to anybody. Maybe the first step is just to talk to a friend about it,’ she says. ‘Probably they’ll relate in some way.’”

[From People]

That advice sounds very sensible. I imagine that for someone struggling with something as complex, private, and scary as anorexia, making a full-on confession might seem too overwhelming. The idea of baby steps makes sense. It’s amazing that Brittany could have had so many people around her who either didn’t notice or didn’t say anything.

Picture note by Celebitchy: Brittany Snow is shown in a white dress at fashion week on 9/5/07. She is at a party for her Vegas Magazine cover on 8/24/07 in the photos where she is wearing a pink dress. Thanks to PRPhotos.

I don’t usually write about fashion – mostly because I consider Old Navy to be the height of couture. But once in a while a story will pop up that has implications far beyond the fashion world. Italy’s Fashion Week is going on right now, and Italian fashion line Nolita has used a picture of an anorexic woman on leaflets they’ve been handing out that say “No Anorexia.” An interesting message, but at first glance it’s confusing and seems like they’re promoting the disease, even though they’re trying to do the opposite.

“A photograph of a naked anorexic woman appeared on Monday in Italian newspapers and on billboards to highlight the effects of the illness during Milan fashion week while promoting a fashion brand. Written above the photo of the woman, used to advertise fashion group Flash&Partners’s clothing brand Nolita, are the words: “No Anorexia”.

“The picture was shot by the controversial Italian photographer Oliviero Toscani, who in 1992 photographed a man dying of AIDS for a campaign for clothing group Benetton. Toscani’s aim was ‘to use that naked body to show everyone the reality of this illness, caused in most cases by the stereotypes imposed by the world of fashion’, Flash&Partners said in a statement.

“‘Everyone says it’s ugly but I don’t think it is, it really brings the message home,’ said passer-by Giuseppina Ravelli after seeing the billboard in Milan. ‘The people who reach these kind of levels have such great problems it is good that they use their illness to teach others about it.’

“But the president of Italy’s Association for the Study of Anorexia, Fabiola De Clercq, said the woman used for the photo should be in hospital and the image was ‘too crude’. Far from helping women suffering from anorexia, the photo may make many of them feel envious of the model and determined to become even thinner than her, she said.”

[From Reuters]

It’s an interesting idea, but I’m not sure it’s good to put that picture out there when it’s directed at women with a distorted body image. Associating it with a fashion brand might add flames to the fire. It seems (and I may be naïve here) that Nolita is trying to do something good, but perhaps a better way to go about that would be to have a picture of a healthy, real woman on there. The idea is probably to shock people with what anorexia really looks like, but the people it’s aimed at probably won’t be shocked, they may be impressed, and strive for that extreme. Points for the idea, but not the execution.

Even though Keira Knightley is freakishly thin, I used to believe her when she said she wasn’t anorexic. Why? Because I have this stupid desire to see the best in people and figure they know themselves better than I do. So when Keira Knightley says she’s just got the world’s most freaky metabolism, I wanted to believe her. She even sued people for saying she was anorexic and went out of her way to say she doesn’t want to promote eating disorders, yada yada. And she seems to be one of the more intelligent women in Hollywood. But mostly because I am gullible, I suppose. But Keira made some comments to Female First that make it pretty clear she’s suffering from anorexia, along with body dysmorphic disorder. She gave some shockingly frightening quotes, and I’m not taking that out of context.

“‘Weight is a big issue in Hollywood because I’m twice the size - height and everything else - of most of the girls who are going in to see the director for a part. When you realise that I am, at my size, one of the largest actresses there, you start to think, ‘I don’t think it’d be healthy for me to stay here much longer.’”

[From Female First]

Well I do have to agree with Keira, in terms of it not being healthy for her to stay in Hollywood much longer. But not because everyone else is messed up and way too skinny, but because her perception is so messed up. I can’t imagine that she weighs more than 90 pounds, max. But because of said previous lawsuits from a paper suggesting she is anorexic, I’m just letting Keira’s lawyers know that I think she’s just the absolutely picture of health, both body and mind.

“The 22-year-old actress has been criticised in the past because of her weight, and accused of having an eating disorder. She was awarded £3,000 damages earlier this year after a British national newspaper suggested she was anorexic.

“Keira has always vehemently denied the claims, but has revealed the life-threatening illness runs in her family. She previously said: ‘I’ve got a lot of experience with anorexia. My grandmother and great-grandmother suffered from it, and I had a lot of friends at school who suffered from it. I know it’s not something to be taken lightly and I don’t.’”

[From Female First]

It seems like in the past, she knew how to say just the right things, but this one slip really goes to the heart of the issue. Keira’s able to exist in Hollywood more successfully than other starlets with issues because she isn’t out boozing and clubbing and flashing her lady bits at any photographer who’s willing to look. So people generally lay off her. I remember Nicole Richie freaking out on paparazzi on several occasions for the “eat a sandwich” type comments they were always typing her way. While I’m not sure of it, it doesn’t seem like Keira has to deal with that in London. She generally lives a respectable life (at least by most appearances) so people lay off a bit. Thus no one’s screaming at her (via their keyboards, of course) like we all do at Britney and Lindsay to get their shit together. But frankly, I really hope someone helps her. Something is clearly off.

Picture below is of Keira on the beach in Hawaii this January. Header image is of Keira at the Dead Man’s Chest UK premiere on 7/3/06.

Jenna Jameson walked the runway for New York designer Heatherette yesterday, and looked like death on a stick. I know she’s blamed her scary weight loss on her diagnosis of malignant melanoma, but that was back in November of 2004 – so nearly three years ago. She had the misshapen mole removed the following month, and says she’s been “100 percent cancer free” since then. So that really doesn’t explain why she looks as skeletal as ever. She seemed to be looking a little healthier lately – less orange tan (after a skin cancer diagnosis, you’d hope even a porn star could at least stay away from the tanning machine) – took out her fake boobs, seemed to have put a little weight back on her emaciated frame. But it seems the porn star has gotten a little skeletal again, considering how he looked on the runway.

“Jenna Jameson is making a transition from the seedy world of porn into the Hollywood celebrity set and has been doing the rounds at New York Fashion Week. She recently stole the show when she walked the red carpet at the Heatherette show looking like a shadow of her former self.

The actress has been battling rumours she is struggling with anorexia for the last few months but she has dismissed those reports and blamed her recent bitter divorce. The Queen of Porn has said it upsets her when fans tell her to “eat a burger” or that they prefer the “old Jenna.” Jenna had posted this message on her MySpace page in response to the accusations a couple of months ago but her situation has not improved and she has gone on to lose even more weight.

[From The Daily Telegraph]

When Jenna first started losing too much weight, she blamed the stress of the skin cancer diagnosis (which also caused her to have a miscarriage). That’s totally understandable, but as those issues faded into the background, she didn’t look any healthier, and has recently been blaming the stress of her (albeit very acrimonious) divorce.

“I feel like I need to address the weight rumors that have been swirling for a few months now. This saddens me… only because, everyone that is judging me… has absolutely NO idea what is happening in my life. People are hateful and accuse me of being a drug addict, or an anorexic.

Does anyone seem to remember the fact that I am going through a nasty divorce? It has been weighing heavily on me. I worked extremely hard for years to secure my success, and i have been forced to fight for everything I busted my ass for. This has definitely affected my weight. It really hurts that my fans (and everyone else) have taken it upon themselves to be so horrible, screaming eat a burger! or we want the old Jenna back! I’m sure everyone out there has gone through tough times, and this is when I need support.

“I wish I could enlighten everyone with what is exactly going on in my divorce and business, but I can’t because of legal proceedings. I really hope everyone understands and remembers I am human, and I really need friends and the love and support right now. “Soon the divorce will be settled and I am hoping to come out unscathed, but my x is doing his best to make it hard. Thanks for all of your support, and remember I love you!

[From The Daily Telegraph]

I know a lot of people don’t eat when they’re stressed, but when you have chronic stress and don’t eat as a result, that is a real problem. I’m not sure if it’s anorexia by definition, but she sure seems beyond the point of having lost “stress weight.” Anorexia is a disease that - for many sufferers - is about control. When you can’t control all the other stressful things in your life, you can control how little you eat. It seems logical that Jenna could be having those issues right now. Since she spent so many years in such a body-focused industry, it makes sense that she could try to control that one area of her life right now, and take it too far. She doesn’t look quite as cartoonish as she did for a while – though her boobs still don’t look natural to me, even though she claimed to have had her implants removed. It’ll be interesting to see what happens when her divorce is over – if she’ll magically put on some weight, or if she’ll come up with a new excuse.

Picture note by JayBird: Here’s Jenna flashing her ass and looking scary skinny at the Heatherette show. Images thanks to WENN.

Courtney Love has a featured spread in next month’s Bazaar magazine, on stands August 21st, but snippets of her interview have already leaked out online, and all I can say is, she’s one hypocritical bitch. I can handle most flaws, but hypocrisy isn’t one of them. She goes off on the unhealthy eating habits of thin starlets. This from the woman who appeared to lose at least 50 pounds in just a few short months. Seriously, she shocked everyone.

“’I’ve lost a lot of weight, and I have done it through being quite disciplined… Some people think it’s about weight loss, but it’s about detoxing. I hate reading magazines where the actresses are saying ‘Broccoli and fish, broccoli and fish.’ You liars. You bulimic liars.’”

[From US Weekly]

Um, I call bullshit on every single word that just came out of her mouth. What? Courtney Love, the queen of all things shot or snorted, is telling people she lost weight naturally by detoxing? That’s such crap. No one loses that much weight like that, and I don’t think anyone believes her. They’re called amphetamines. I’m sure you know them well. Who the hell does she think she is? Just because it comes out of her mouth, we’re all supposed to buy it? Since she lost all that weight, she’s been accused of having an eating disorder by just about every article written about her. So I guess she’s just “paying it forward” so to speak.

“Rocker Courtney Love has denied speculation she is too thin by announcing she has gained 10 pounds on a unique cupcake diet. The former Hole frontwoman has recently come under fire for shedding too much weight, but Love insists she is healthy and has blasted the attention surrounding her size.

”She writes on her MySpace website: ‘I’ve put on 10 pounds (thank you Sprinkles cupcakes which I must admit are overrated). I must point out the hypocrisy of this crazy hysteria about my weight. No one’s going to mistake me for Eva Longoria, and my God I am truly happy to be who and what I am. With my life and my experience I can do so many things to help so many people and make such a beautiful clothing line too!’

“Last month, Love’s appearance at a concert in New York City sparked concerns about her shrinking frame - prompting the singer to tell fans: “I don’t have an eating disorder.”

[From Ireland Online]

So she doesn’t have an eating disorder because she gained 10 pounds from eating too many cupcakes? Maybe she gained 10 pounds to get people to stop talking about how she was too thin… just a thought. Either way, I think it’s hysterical that she calls people hypocrites for wondering if she has an eating disorder, and then a few days later the Bazaar article is leaked where she accuses thin celebrities of being bulimic. What I really want to know is, when is she going to take responsibility for those collagen fish-lip injections she had? That wasn’t fair to the rest of us, making us look at those things.

Pictures of Courteney Love in Bazaar via DListed and StyleCrunch.

Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz admitted in an interview with British Q Magazine that he suffers from manic depression and has been on medication for the disorder since he was 18. He says he had a lot of emotional problems after his parents divorced while he was 6:

He says, “I have manic depression. I obsess over everything. When I am depressed, I can’t get out of bed. But right now, it’s sunny and 65 in my head, so it’s OK!”

Wentz, 28, goes on to reveal he has been on medication for depression and anxiety problems since he was 18, revealing the trauma of his parents’ separation on his sixth birthday left him emotionally scarred and unable to express his feelings.

He adds, “I turned my emotions off like a faucet.

[From SFGate]

You have to admire the guy for coming out with the news that he suffers from a stigmatizing mental illness. That takes a lot of courage. I used to think Wentz was a douche but I have a lot of respect that he was able to open up like this.

In February, 2005, Wentz had a possible suicide attempt after overdosing on Ativan, an anxiety drug. He spent a week in the hospital and moved in with his parents afterwards. Of the incident, Pete said “I was isolating myself further and further, and the more I isolated myself, the more isolated I’d feel. I wasn’t sleeping. I just wanted my head to shut off, like, I just wanted to completely stop thinking about anything at all.” [Details from Wikipedia]

When celebrities talk about their struggle with mental illness and other personal problems, it helps the rest of us realize that we’re not alone and that there’s no shame in what we go though.

I didn’t publish anything other than a link yesterday about Thandie Newton admitting that she suffered from bulimia, although the story really moved me. That was something that hit a little too close to home for me, and even my family doesn’t know about it. They probably do now.

Pete Wentz is shown with his girlfriend Ashlee Simpson at Kanye West’s 30th birthday on 6/7/07. Thandie Newton is shown on 7/11/07 at the summer party for Serpentine Gallery in London. Thanks to PR Photos.