The 'Pretty Little Liars' star gets candid on the newest episode of Katie Lowe's podcast, 'Katie's Crib.'
Troian Bellisario is getting candid about her worries with motherhood.
The Pretty Little Liars star, who welcomed her first child with Suits actor Patrick J. Adams in October, admitted on the most recent episode of Katie Lowe's Shondaland podcast, Katie's Crib, that, among other things, her past experience with an eating disorder made her scared to have a daughter.
"I had always the expectation, for some reason, maybe it's because I was surrounded by brothers growing up, that I was going to have a boy," the 33-year-old actress explains. "Of course I was worried."
"I was thinking about my relationship with my mother, I was thinking about, honestly, my history with my eating disorder, this is horrifying," she continues. "My imaginings of a girl are just so, 'You're gonna hate me.'"
Thankfully, Bellisario's support system of women helped her through the process.
"I had a really wonderful group of women around me, and as I've gotten older, I've become more and more better friends with women," she shares, adding that the experience has also helped to see her own mother in a new context. "It's just nice to be able to see my mother give love to her in a way that's not burdened with our 33 years of experience."
Listen to Bellisario's entire interview here.
In 2017, Bellisario spoke to ET while promoting her film, Feed, explaining how making the movie helped her better understand her past struggles with an eating disorder.
"I got to examine the illness from a greater perspective," she said. "Now, jumping into the role and in acting it, I think I had a lot of naivete just being like, ‘Yeah! I got this! You know? That was, like, years ago!’ and then all of a sudden I was like, 'Oh, wow, this has just been living under the surface.'"
"It was really important to re-engage in those conversations," Bellisario added. "To be open and to be vulnerable and continue to talk to my therapist and my family and say, ‘Wow, I’m really struggling with doing this,’ and even struggling with putting the story out there, you know?"
Bellisario shared that, throughout filming, her mother was extremely supportive.
"My mom was really wonderful when she spoke to me about it," she shared. "She said, 'You know I love you, and I loved you through your illness, but I didn’t understand it until I read your script.'"
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