The obsession to be skinny has rung true in Hollywood for its almost 100-year existence. That’s one of the biggest challenges and obstacles of being a celebrity; you had to be thin. It’s mostly true for both males and females, but because women have always endured the high standards to look beautiful at all times, they’re plagued with much more pressure than men to have a beautiful body.
It seems like women (celebrities and non-celebs alike, it seems) mistakenly base their standards of beauty on the stick-thin models that walk the world’s biggest fashion runways. Many don’t realize that everyone is built differently and some will never be waif-like unless they resort to appalling measures that border on dangerous. Here are some celebrities who have gone through drastic weight loss. The media did not hesitate to broadcast these changes to the public and it can serve as a warning to the rest of us that it doesn’t pay to be too skinny-obsessed.
11 Nicole Richie
She didn’t exactly come into prominence with the best of reputations. Nicole Richie was first known as a spoiled rich kid who lived off her daddy, music legend Lionel Richie. Her self-entitlement was put on full display in the reality show The Simple Life, in which she starred with then best friend and fellow heiress Paris Hilton. Richie was at a healthy weight back then, but in 2006, she was looking a little too thin, bordering on malnourished. Reports said that she was only 90 pounds.
10 Renee Zellweger
Among all the actresses who have had to lose or gain weight for a role, no actress has gone through the process in as bright a spotlight as Renee Zellweger. The naturally slender blonde actress had to gain 20 pounds in a short amount of time for her role as the titular character in the film Bridget Jones’s Diary, in which she went from a size 4 to a size 14. Immediately after she finished the film, she dropped to a dress size even less than her original size 4, only to gain the weight back for Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason.
9 Tara Reid
When Tara Reid first graced our small screens in shows like Days of Our Lives, California Dreams, and Scrubs, her sun-kissed blonde hair and bright blue eyes made her an endearing fixture in our entertainment viewing pastime. She seemed to be looking better as the years went by, but somewhere along the way, she somehow became obsessed with her looks. She was criticized for losing an obscene amount of weight, to the point of looking malnourished. That, and her fixation on plastic surgery, seemed to have ruined her natural beauty.
8 LeAnn Rhimes
She was considered a child wonder in the music world, having risen to fame in the country music scene at the tender age of 13. LeAnn Rimes crossed over to pop with songs like How Do I Live Without You, You Light Up My Life, and Can’t Fight The Moonlight, which she sang in the film Coyote Ugly. When she was preparing for her wedding to Eddie Cibrian in 2011, Rimes became obsessed with losing weight, prompting her to go on an extreme diet.
7 Rachel Zoe
Being a celebrity stylist has got to be one tough job. Being surrounded by skinny famous women and models while picking out the best clothes for them to wear puts a lot of pressure on the stylist to look as good as her clients. Rachel Zoe is perhaps the cream of the crop in terms of celeb stylists and she’s a celeb herself, with her own fashion line and reality show. In 2008, Zoe looked skeletal when she was photographed in public events, leaving people to suspect that she had an eating disorder. She has denied such allegations and since then gained a bit of weight, bringing her to a healthier looking figure.
6 Lindsay Lohan
As a child actress, she impressed everyone with her performance as twins in the remake of the Disney film The Parent Trap. Lindsay Lohan was one adorable little girl, with her red hair and freckles. She blossomed into an equally lovely teenager, but all of a sudden, she hit rock bottom when her life started spiralling out of control. She lost an obscene amount of weight, giving off the impression that she had an eating disorder.
5 Kate Bosworth
Kate Bosworth is one of the many actresses in Hollywood who doesn’t need to be obsessed with her weight. When she appeared in films like The Horse Whisperer, Remember The Titans, and Superman Returns, she looked just the right size. But when she was set to appear in the surfer film Blue Crush, she felt the need to lose weight to look good in beach attire. But she set tongues wagging with just how much weight she was losing. In 2012, she weighed 98 pounds, leading people to believe that she was suffering from malnourishment.
4 Angelina Jolie
She’s always been deemed a sex symbol, with her pouty lips, seductive eyes, and body to put a Greek goddess to shame. Angelina Jolie has graced many a man’s fantasy. Even being a mother of six kids has not diminished her image. Many deemed her the perfect Lara Croft in the Tomb Raider films because she possessed just the right curves that the video game character had. But as of late, everyone has noticed that she lost those curves and that she’s been looking very thin. Whether it’s due to personal problems or an eating disorder, we may never find out.
3 Bethenny Frankel
Bethenny Frankel first became known to the public when she joined the reality show The Real Housewives of New York. She is also a talk show host, author, chef, and businesswoman. This naturally slim lady decided to write a book called Naturally Thin: Unleash Your SkinnyGirl and Free Yourself from a Lifetime of Dieting. But it seemed like Frankel took being skinny a little too far, when she posted a photo on her Instagram account of herself wearing her 4-year-old daughter’s pajamas.
2 Miley Cyrus
Like many Disney child stars who struggled to break out of that wholesome image they were compartmentalized into, Miley Cyrus took going wild to the extreme. She was such an adorable pre-teen when she played Hannah Montana, the Disney show that cemented her status as celebrity. It helped launch her singing career and her movie career as well. Then as she grew older, she started baring more and more skin and acting like a subject from the show Girls Gone Wild. Back in 2015, her Instagram followers were troubled to see a photo she posted of herself looking like she had not been eating.
1 Ali Lohan
Yes, she may have started out in a reality show called Living Lohan and was initially known as the younger sister of Linday Lohan. But Ali Lohan has made several attempts to carve her own niche in the entertainment world. Given her height of 5-foot-9, she forayed into modeling, then later branched out into singing and the occasional acting gig. She was a naturally beautiful girl, so it came as a shock when she emerged after a hiatus looking like a completely different person. Her facial features were drastically altered and she looked like she had lost at least 20 pounds.
Sources: health.com, radaronline.com, stylecaster.com, mirror.co.uk
