The celebrated entertainer recently recalled an emotionally damaging experience from her early days in showbusiness.
Marie Osmond is reflecting on how an emotionally traumatic experience as a teenager led to a painful struggle with self-esteem and body dysmorphia.
Speaking with Page Six, the 63-year-old entertainer recalled how she was berated and insulted by a TV producer while filming the variety show, Donny & Marie, in which she starred alongside her brother, Donny Osmond, from 1976 to 1979.
"It was on that lot that I was taken out to the back by some head of the studio -- and I'm like 5′ 5" and about 103 pounds -- and he basically said, 'You're an embarrassment to your family. You're fat,'" Marie recalled.
She said that the was told that that producer screamed at her and told her that "250 people were going to lose their jobs because you can’t keep food out of your fat face." Marie said she was subsequently spurred on to undergoing a dangerous diet regimen.
This led to her dropping weight and she said she "got down to like 92 pounds" in the process.
Eventually, she came to a moment of jarring self-realization that came when she was changing in her dressing room on set.
"I was in the dressing room, bending over putting on my pantyhose, and there was a girl in there changing who was just an emaciated skeleton with skin on her," Marie recalled. "And I just thought, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s so sick,’ and I stood up and realized that girl was me."
Marie explained it was "just one of those big 'AHA'" moments that made her realize "body dysmorphia is a real thing."
Marie has been candid about being shamed in the past -- such as in 2019, when she revealed that she'd been criticized after her son, Michael, died by suicide back in 2010.
"I've been shamed before. You know, if you take the topic of shame, you can say what you want about me, but when they start attacking your children or your family or those type of things, I think this world is in to too much of this shaming thing," the mother of eight said.
"For example, when my son died, I chose to go to work a week after his funeral," she continued of Michael, who was one five children that Osmond adopted with her ex-husband, Brian Blosil. "And the people were so cruel, because of me choosing to show my children they had to keep living... It hurt my children more than anything that they would go through that."
Osmond also experienced public shaming for attending her daughter, Jessica's, recent nuptials to her wife, Sara.
"Another thing recently is my daughter is gay, and I went to her wedding. She just got married. And people were shaming me because of supporting my daughter," Osmond shared. "And, you know, the thing is, is that you should never shame anyone... and I think especially for loving your child. Never you should shame someone."
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