The former Spice Girl has revealed how she struggled to hide her eating disorder from her parents after leaving the band
Victoria Beckham has revealed that she suffered from a crippling eating disorder that she learned to keep from her loved ones after leaving the Spice Girls.
In her new documentary, the star shared that she stopped eating because she was felt unable to control what others were saying about her during the height of her fame, but “I can control my weight”.
She admitted she tried to hide her condition after the Spice Girls split and got “very good at lying”. Victoria said: “It’s been a lot, and that’s hard. I had no control over what was being written about me, the pictures being taken, and I suppose I wanted to control that.
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“I could control it with the clothing, I could control it with my weight and I was controlling it in an extremely unhealthy way. When you have an eating disorder you become very good at lying and I was never honest about it with my parents.”
She added that it affected her “constantly” and has now been with her for her entire life. “I never talked about it publicly. It really affects you when you’re being told constantly that you’re not good enough and I suppose that’s been with me my whole life.”
The admission was made during an episode called Kill The Wag. In it, Victoria shared that she lost her identity whilst trying to rebrand herself as a fashion designer and not a Spice Girl or the wife of footballer David Beckham. She explained how she got a boob job, wore hair extensions and branded that era the “attention-seeking” years.
But within two years, she had successfully turned things around and gotten her career as a fashion designer off the ground. She also got the boob job reversed. “i buried those boobs in Baden-Baden!” she joked.
In another scene, Victoria’s parents, Jackie and Tony Adams said her eating disorder stemmed from bad experiences at theatre school. Her mother recalled, “If you’re told you’re overweight, you’d be hurt” sharing how Victoria was called fat by her classmates and pushed to the back of the stage.
“It’s a silly thing to say to a young person – ‘you’re fat’,” she added. Tony continued: “Obviously it would upset her.” Victoria then revealed how she begged her parents to let her come home because the other children were so mean.
Victoria, whose eldest son Brooklyn has aspirations of a successful chef career, now eats healthily. A friend explained why Victoria decided to share her experiences with an eating disorder on the documentary: “Victoria wanted to be honest and upfront in this documentary — she didn’t want to shy away from a subject she knows still, to this day, obsesses people.
“In her younger years, before she found the gym and true happiness with her career and family, she was incredibly rigid with her food, and borderline anorexic. She largely replaced solid food with liquids and would also run quite obsessively. She was also told to lose weight by Spice Girls management and that saw her spiral.”
They added: “Her decision to speak about it now shows just how far she has come — she’s an incredible role model to both her kids and women generally. Victoria hopes that by being honest with her difficulties, she can help others experiencing similar problems.”
For help and support on eating disorders contact Beat Eating Disorders on 0808 801 0677.
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