The singer said she would “starve” herself if she saw a photograph of herself looking a bit bigger, leaving her feeling as if she might pass out during or after shows on her 1989 tour in 2014.
She addresses her issues with eating in her new Netflix documentary, Miss Americana, which had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.
“I didn’t know if I was going to feel comfortable with talking about body image and talking about the stuff I’ve gone through in terms of how unhealthy that’s been for me – my relationship with food and all that over the years. But the way that Lana (Wilson, the film’s director) tells the story, it really makes sense. I’m not as articulate as I should be about this topic because there are so many people who could talk about it in a better way. But all I know is my own experience,” Taylor Swift told Variety, a US trade magazine.
Her new documentary gives an insight into how the industry shaped her perception of herself, her struggles with her body image and how she was led to believe she was “supposed to feel like I was going to pass out at the end of a show, or in the middle of it”.
The documentary also uses before-and-after photos to illustrate how much Swift’s weight shifted while promoting her 1989 album in 2014, compared to the tour for her Reputation album in 2018 as she says that under-eating severely affected her stamina on tour.
Swift said she has now accepted the fact that she is “a size 6 instead of a size double-zero” and realises that “if you eat food, have energy, get stronger, you can do all these shows and not feel (enervated).”