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Lily Collins: I beat bulimia and anorexia to pose for fitness magazine

Recovered: Lilly Collins kept her struggles with eating disorders secret: EPA
Recovered: Lilly Collins kept her struggles with eating disorders secret: EPA

Lily Collins says she overcame a serious eating disorder to pose in a swimsuit on the cover of a leading fitness magazine.

For years the actress and daughter of musician Phil Collins kept her struggle with anorexia and bulimia secret from her friends and family.

In an interview accompanying her photoshoot in Shape magazine, Collins, 28, said: “I never dreamed I’d be posing in a bikini on the cover of Shape. It’s a complete 180 for me. It’s a magazine about what it means to be healthy.

“My perspective on other people’s view of me was based on this disorder being a secret. But the more open I became about it, the more I was able to be myself.

"I did consider that talking about my struggles with an eating disorder would overshadow my accomplishments as an actor, but I also knew this was something I needed to do to move forward.

"Having suffered from an eating disorder doesn’t define me — I’m not ashamed of my past.”

The Mirror Mirror actress, who has fully recovered, added: “I used to see healthy as this image of what I thought perfect looked like — the perfect muscle definition, etc. But healthy now is how strong I feel. It’s a beautiful change.”

She discusses her battle in a book titled Unfiltered: No Shame, No Regrets, Just Me, and plays a woman with an eating disorder in her next film, To The Bone, out on Netflix on July 14.

The actress said: “It was a new form of recovery for me. I got to experience it as my character, Ellen, but also as Lily. I was terrified that doing the movie would take me backward, but I had to remind myself that they hired me to tell a story, not to be a certain weight. In the end, it was a gift to be able to step back into shoes I had once worn, but from a more mature place.”