Kerry Washington Mentions JLo and Gwyneth Paltrow While Discussing Her Body Image in the '90s

The 'Scandal' actress discussed her new memoir, ‘Thicker Than Water,’ with Gabrielle Union in Los Angeles

Kerry Washington is opening up even more about her experience with body image issues.

On Oct. 1, Washington spoke candidly with actress Gabrielle Union at the Palace Theatre during the Los Angeles book tour stop for her bombshell memoir, Thicker Than Water. During their discussion, Union brought up a widely held belief that “Black women and girls don't experience disordered eating or experience body dysmorphia” and asked Washington, 46, if that affected her own personal journey.

“I think this idea of needing to fix myself, needing to be better, needing to be more perfect, those seeds were planted very early,” Washington told Union.

Washington, who spoke with PEOPLE for our Oct. 9 issue, stated that she was “a very private person” in her story. Thicker Than Water, which published on Sept. 26, shows a vulnerable side of the Scandal and Little Fires Everywhere actress, as she discusses topics like her childhood panic attacks, having an abortion and her experience with an eating disorder.

Related: The Biggest Bombshells from Kerry Washington's New Memoir: From Her Secret Wedding to a Heartbreaking Miscarriage

With Union, Washington talked about going to school on New York City’s Upper East Side, where she thought that comparing herself with the “very affluent White women” at her private school helped contribute to her eating disorder.

“These are stereotypes, but the ways that their moms and the women in that world looked was so different from the women that I grew up with,” Washington told Union. “And all the messages I was getting from Hollywood and from this environment was that thinner is better. And that success looked like thinness.”

Washington also discussed being from the same Bronx neighborhood that Jennifer Lopez was from and how, in the ‘90s, the former had a different view of beauty standards.

“Jennifer's butt was being celebrated everywhere,” Washington recalled. “But that wasn’t what I was interpreting as beautiful. Because I was spending nine hours a day at Spence, where Gwyneth Paltrow went. I'm not body shaming Gwyneth Paltrow, but...there was one area that I was sort of being told was the direction to pursue.” Washington also made a joke to the crowd about how she had mentioned two of Ben Affleck’s exes. Lopez and Affleck are now married.

Washington went on to tell Union that about how she feels there should be more open conversation about eating disorders as well.

“I think that we sometimes don't talk about it as much as we should,” she said. “Part of why I think it's important to talk about it is because disordered eating does not belong to one community. That pain does not belong to one community.”

Related: Kerry Washington Says She Contemplated Suicide amid 'Toxic' Eating Disorder: 'It Scared Me'

Thicker Than Water, as the title suggests, showcases Washington’s message of resilience.

“In my community, there was not a lot of experience with eating disorders,” Washington said. “I think it's important that we have the courage to recognize when things are not okay.”

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Thicker Than Water is now available where books are sold.

• With Reporting by Nathan Vinson

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