Lily Collins is breaking her silence about her most “toxic” relationship. On Wednesday’s We Can Do Hard Things podcast, the Emily in Paris star opened up about a horrible-sounding relationship in her “early 20s.” She admitted: “Small” was apparently a big thing with him.
She recalled the names he would call her, which were reductive in more ways than one: She said the “belittling words” did exactly what they were meant to — they left her “quite silent and comfortable in silence and feeling like I had to make myself small to feel super safe.” Related: Emily In Paris Shoes Sent Lily To The Foot Doctor Every Week! How did she make herself “small”?
In one sense, quite literally. She’s opened up about her battle with eating disorders in the past, and it sounds like this emotional abuse pushed her deeper into it.
She described how small animals react to predators: That is truly heartbreaking. Lily was left feeling “anxiety” and “panic” — emotions that still surface every now and again, even though she’s now 33 years old and happily married to filmmaker Charlie McDowell.