Penn Badgley Details Struggle With Body Dysmorphia
Penn Badgley is opening up about his self-perception.
The You star recently reflected on his younger years as a child actor and his difficult experience with what he described as “body dysmorphia.”
“I know that I hated my body,” Penn told The Guardian in an interview published April 16, “and simply wanted a different one.”
And his body dysmorphia—which is a mental health condition where a person obsesses over their perceived defects or flaws in their appearance, according to Mayo Clinic—was exacerbated by the loneliness he felt after his parents’ divorce, which caused him to gain weight. In fact, the 38-year-old noted that the change wound up having an impact on his psyche at work.
“There was just a period where, coming out of depression and isolation,” Penn continued, “I was jumping wilfully into, but also being thrust into, this world where the more conventionally beautiful I seemed, the more successful I might be, the more value I might have.”
He added, “There’s no way to get past the superficiality of this work, and if you recognize that, you can’t help but recognize the superficiality of our culture, because of the way it rewards this work.”
The Gossip Girl alum also explained how he thought the CW series—which ran from 2007 to 2012 and also starred Blake Lively, Leighton Meester and Chace Crawford—reinforced society’s negative focus on beauty.
“What was that show other than aesthetic? That was its thing—the way we all looked,” he said. “I didn’t particularly love the superficial celebrity aspect of the way I was perceived.”
Despite the reinforcement of the difficult beauty standard, Penn—who is dad to son James, 4, and stepdad to Cassius, 15, with pregnant wife Domino Kirke, 40—credited his ability to persist with his acting career to his spirituality.
“That is what allowed me to persevere through the disillusionment, all the things I’d been grappling with,” he explained, “and then come back to it all, but with hopefully some kind of inner transformation.”
As for what Penn has turned his focus to these days? He noted that it’s “the simple stuff of life, like having a family, meaningful relationships with my friends.”
Read on to see more stars who have been open about their mental health journeys.
The Scrubs alum has been vocal about her past difficult relationship with food.
“Some may call it an eating disorder, I just call it my life,” she said on the The Funny Thing Is podcast. “My drug of choice was always food. I did crazy s--t with it.”
She added, “I would over-exercise, and there was a sprinkle of bulimia in there.”
Though she has confessed her struggles with her diet, she has also shared her progress with her health and fitness goals.
“When I was 23, I cut all sugar out of my diet, quit drinking, and found yoga and breathing and stretching,” she told Bon Appétit in 2017. “That’s the best Ritalin you could give anyone."
She continued, "I’m an actress with food issues and body image issues—that's real. But I'm trying to heal that part of myself and also handle my physical issues naturally by putting the best things into my body."
The Full House alum reflected on her mental health journey and navigating her battle with depression.
"It's very difficult to speak out about it, even to your most trusted people," she shared on her Candace Cameron Bure Podcast. "At least for me, I feel like I should be strong enough to overcome that and then it feels so weak."
The Grammy winner has been very open about how she protects her energy, such as ignoring haters on social media, while also sharing her advice for those who may need help.
"When people ask me what I'd say to somebody looking for advice on mental health, the only thing I can say is patience," she told Vogue. "I had patience with myself. I didn't take that last step. I waited. Things fade."
While everyone was trying to make the best of socially distancing to slow the coronavirus pandemic, the "Firework" artist got real about how situations like this can also be extremely stressful.
"Sometimes I don't know what's worse trying to avoid the virus or the waves of depression that come with this new norm," she shared on Twitter. Katy talked about how she manages those waves, writing, "There is not really anywhere to go besides my car. So I go to my car a lot. That is my safe space."
The model, who teamed up with designer Kenneth Cole to raise awareness for The Mental Health Coalition, spoke on Good Morning America about her own experiences with anxiety.
She recalled after her panic attacks started recurring, she, "finally kind of got the information that I needed about it."
"For me, I have good days and I have some really anxious days, so I'm really off and on," Kendall expressed, adding that was why she wanted to become involved with the movement. "What I hope to accomplish is for people to not feel as alone."
The Black Adam actor has been open about having depression and how it can be difficult for men to talk about their mental health.
"We all go thru the sludge/shit and depression never discriminates. Took me a long time to realize it but the key is to not be afraid to open up," he wrote on Twitter. "Especially us dudes have a tendency to keep it in. You're not alone."
The Duke of Sussex helped break down some of the stigma around seeking help for mental health when, in an interview with the Telegraph, he opened up about his own journey with therapy. As he told the outlet, "The experience I have had is that once you start talking about it, you realize that actually you're part of quite a big club."
Another proponent of seeking professional help, the Empire star has been open about her struggles with depression.
"I have a therapist that I speak to," she previously told Variety. "That's the only way I can get through it."
Taraji even started The Boris Lawrence Henson Foundation, which works to reduce the stigma around mental health in the African American community and also works to increase the number of Black therapists.
"When I was in middle school, I was struggling with severe anxiety and depression and the help and support I received from my family and a therapist saved my life," the Riverdale actress wrote on Instagram in 2017. "Asking for help is the first step. You are more precious to this world than you'll ever know."
The Frozen star has talked for years about her strategies for coping with her mental health at public keynotes and even on her Instagram Stories.
She has advocated for finding the methods that help you best, which for her, according to Health, can include medication, listing ten positive things in her life for every negative thought and getting plenty of exercise.
While the cookbook author is the proud parent to four kiddos, she's also been open about postpartum depression that many new mothers experience but feel like they cannot talk about.
"It got easier and easier to say it aloud every time," she wrote in an open letter to Glamour in 2017. "I want people to know it can happen to anybody and I don't want people who have it to feel embarrassed or to feel alone."
While promoting her book Mirror, Mirror, the model opened up to The Edit magazine about facing depression and suicidal thoughts as a teenager, saying she felt "something dark" in her during that time.
"I relied too much on love, too much on other people to make me happy, and I needed to learn to be happy by myself," Cara told the publication, via W. "So now I can be by myself, I can be happy. It took me a long time."
The "Thank U, Next" artist has encouraged fans to seek help if they need, responding to a Twitter user who joked about wondering who Ariana's therapist is with, "lmaoaoo this is funny as f--k but in all honesty therapy has saved my life so many times."
"If you're afraid to ask for help, don't be," she continued. "u don't have to be in constant pain & u can process trauma. I've got a lot of work to do but it's a start to even be aware that it's possible."
The singer has been open about her journey with addiction, sobriety, mental health and more, including many of those aspects of her life within her music.
She also continually reminds fans that working on your mental health is an ongoing process where there will be some bad days, previously writing on Instagram, "A reminder to anyone struggling out there - this life is a journey with tons of ups and downs but you can't give up."
Not only has the actress taken on roles that deal with mental health, such as her role as Rue in the teen drama Euphoria, she's also addressed those issues in her own life, too.
Back in 2013, Zendaya wrote on her now-defunct app that she struggled with anxiety after an appearance on Ellen where her mic went out. She has since learned ways to manage those feelings, adding, "Sometimes you just have to take a step back so things stop stressin' you."
The singer candidly described her mental health journey with WSJ Magazine, saying, "My highs were really high, and my lows would take me out for weeks at a time."
"I found out I do suffer from mental health issues," she shared. "I got on the right medication, and my life has been completely changed."
The Grammy winner made it her mission to spread kindness and be open about mental health, including her own.
"I have struggled for a long time, both being public and not public about my mental health issues or my mental illness," she said during the Global Changemakers Award at Children Mending Hearts' Empathy Rocks fundraiser in 2018. "But, I truly believe that secrets keep you sick."
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