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Marie Osmond Gets Candid About Body Struggles as a Teen: ‘I Did Starvation’ to ‘Be Skinny’
Throughout her life, Marie Osmond has endured many personal battles. In a recent interview with Fox News, the beloved “Paper Roses” songstress got candid about her struggles with weight loss and revealed she would limit how much she ate after someone commented on her figure as a young teen.
“From the time I started Donny & Marie, age 15, I did starvation,” the 60-year-old beauty confessed. “I would literally starve myself for three days before taping, drinking lemon water and cayenne pepper with maple syrup so I can be skinny.”
The gravity of Marie’s obsession with weight loss became all the more real after someone advised she lose more weight. “One day, I was taken out into a parking lot and one of the studio people told me that if I didn’t drop 10 pounds, they were going to cancel the show,” she shared. “They said I was an embarrassment to my family and I needed to keep the food out of my fat face.”
“I was 103 pounds — I’d kill to be 103 pounds. So I got down to 93 pounds,” she continued. “I never realized the mental abuse behind that. I went through other kinds too. But those leave scars and traumas. I swear to you, every diet on the planet I tried.”
Marie explained there were many factors that contributed to her weight gain. “I was taking care of my mother and I had put the weight on,” she recalled. “You eat when you’re tired. You eat inconsistently. And then you try to diet. But you’re also trying to raise a family.”
During her teenage and young adult years, the Donny & Marie star took on the responsibility to care for her family while also traveling the world as a Hollywood icon. “I was the provider for my family, so I had to work,” she explained. “Eating was my way of coping with life. And you justify it, like ‘My bones are getting bigger’ or ‘I’m just going to be my mother.’”
The proud mom of eight then explained why she finally took control of her body and health. “Women in my family don’t live much past 60,” she said of her family history. “They put weight around their stomach. They also suffer from strokes and heart attacks. That’s what took my mother’s life. And I’m the only daughter.”
Considering she’s the only girl of nine children, Marie’s mom, Olive Osmond, stressed the importance of taking care of herself prior to her death in May 2004. “I have eight brothers. The last thing she said to me was ‘Do not do to your body what I did to mine,’” she remembered. “Shortly after that, I was going through a divorce and I have eight children.”
The Dancing With the Stars alum said her late son, Michael, was also a huge reason why she decided to do something about her well-being. “I remember my son took me aside on behalf of the kids and told me, ‘Mom, you’re all we have. We can’t lose you. I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but you’ve got to lose weight,'” she recalled. “That was the killer punch in the gut.”
After finally chatting with Michael — who tragically passed away from suicide in 2010 — Marie knew it was time to get in the best shape of her life. “I was doing Dancing with the Stars and I thought 50 extra pounds in spandex is not a beautiful combination. I was ready. It took me about four months to lose 50 pounds,” the brunette beauty explained.
Considering Marie has been in the public eye ever since her famous family rose to international superstardom as young kids, the legendary singer has been an open book. Although most Hollywood stars retreat from the spotlight when it comes to personal struggles, Marie couldn’t be more honest with her fans.
“I think by talking through things, people realize that we’re all women getting through this,” she told Closer Weekly about why she is so personal with her fans on social media and on The Talk. “We have a lot of men that watch the show too, probably 50 percent, but I think it’s just fun to sit there and go, ‘It’s OK.’ You know, ‘I’ve been there, I’ve been through this.’ Maybe that’s one of the reasons they chose me, CBS, is [I’ve] been through a lot of those [ups and downs] and, I don’t know, I think sharing sometimes really helps.”
Marie is such an inspiring woman.
