Chloë Grace Moretz has opened up about suffering from body dysmorphic disorder after an ‘awful’ ‘Family Guy’ meme of herself went viral, admitting she’s become a ‘recluse’.
The ‘Kick-Ass’ star revealed in an interview with Hunger magazine that the oft-posted “joke” on Twitter forced her to retreat from the public eye.
“There was one meme that really got to me, the one of me walking into a hotel with a pizza box in my hand,” the 25-year-old said.
Moretz explained that “this photo was manipulated into a ‘Family Guy’ character with long legs and a short torso, and it was one of the most popular memes at the time.”
The photograph is from 2016 when she carried the two pizza boxes while wearing an outfit consisting of heels and shorts. The paparazzi snapshot was later edited to look like her midsection was shortened and her legs were too long. The shot was reminiscent of the “Family Guy” character “Legs Go All the Way Up Griffin”, so the series cartoon and Moretz’s pap shot went side by side. Thus, a meme was born.
“Everyone was making fun of my body and I talked to someone about it and they were like, ‘Oh shut the fuck up, that’s funny,'” the ‘Carrie’ actress noted.
But Moretz said while she “never really talked about it,” she suffered from body dysmorphia.
“I just remember sitting there and thinking, my body is being used as a joke and that’s something I can’t change about who I am, and it’s posted all over Instagram,” she said.
“[I] became a recluse,” she said, adding that she had just come out doing film projects. “To this day, when I see this meme, it’s something very difficult for me to overcome.”
The Georgia native also said being left alone was “great” because she had the opportunity to “get away from the photographers and I was able to be myself.”
“[I was able to] have so many experiences that people haven’t photographed,” she said. “But at the same time, it made me very anxious when I was photographed. My heart rate would increase and I would hyperventilate.
Moretz added how the offensive photo made her “a bit sad” because it made her feel uncomfortable to go out in public.
“It took a layer of something I loved, which was getting dressed, going to a mat and taking a picture, and it made me super embarrassed,” she said.
The ‘Brain on Fire’ star also said she’s been through a lot of therapy due to issues in the spotlight.
“I think body dysmorphia — which we all face in this world — is extrapolated by social media issues. It’s a headf–k,” she said.
Moretz also revealed how the coronavirus pandemic and lockdown have “helped” stay out of the spotlight.
“To say the past two years have been transformative is an understatement, to say the least,” Moretz said. “I’m a very different girl than I was. I feel like a woman now.
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