Sophie Turner stopped at nothing to conquer her serious eating disorder.
In an Elle UK June 2022 cover interview, the Game of Thrones alum, who is pregnant with her and husband Joe Jonas' second child, recalled having a therapist live with her temporarily to help her stay healthy.
"For a long time, I was quite sick with an eating disorder and I had a companion," said Sophie, 26. "It's a live-in therapist, who would ensure I wasn't doing anything unhealthy with my eating habits."
The actress continued, "One night, I was playing over and over in my mind a comment I'd seen on Instagram. I was like, 'I'm so fat, I'm so undesirable,' and spinning out. She said to me, 'You know, no one actually cares. I know you think this, but nobody else is thinking it. You're not that important'...That was the best thing anyone could have told me."
Sophie has spoken before about battling an eating disorder. "Suddenly, everyone's metabolism slows down at 17, 18 and then that's documented," she told The Sunday Times Magazine in 2019. "My skin and everything. People commenting on it. I was too aware of my body at a young age. And it just kind of took over my mind, it was all I would think about. Calorie counting, everything."
She continued, "I stopped having my period for a year — that's when I decided to have therapy."
Sophie added that when Joe met her in 2016, she was "going through this phase of being very mentally unwell," and that "he was, like, 'I can't be with you until you love yourself, I can't see you love me more than you love yourself.'" The actress added, "I think he kind of saved my life, in a way."
Sophie, who stars in the new HBO series The Staircase, told Elle UK that she still has therapy "every week." "Occasionally, I go on a retreat to check myself, and I still have days when I feel depressed or anxious," she added. "It's manageable now — I have the tools."
The actress said social media makes her "incredibly anxious" and that she recently decided to delete the Instagram app from her phone, which has been "so helpful."
"Now, if I do have to go on it, it's for a few minutes once or twice a week, rather than hours every day," she said. "It's made such a difference. Live real life — it's much more fun."