Kristen Stewart Admits To Making Herself ‘Ill’ During Rough Teen Years
Kristen Stewart hasn’t exactly had an easy ride in Hollywood. The painstakingly shy actress, who suffered through awkward interviews, never seemed ready to be thrust on the cover of lunch boxes and teen magazines. In the new issue of Marie Claire, the Twilight actress says it wasn’t an easy adjustment.
Perhaps she was speaking about her affair with director Rupert Sanders, whom she met on the set of Snow White and the Huntsman. For Kristen, this affair broke up her longtime relationship with Twilight star Robert Pattinson, and put her under an even bigger magnifying glass. “I lit my universe on fire and I watched it burn. Speaking very candidly, it was a really traumatic period in my early 20s that kick-started something in me that was a bit more… feral. The public kind of burned me at the stake. But that’s OK, I can take it. I’m not dead.”
That said, it seems like it was even more difficult during her teen years, before Twilight came along. Growing pains was a reason behind her anxiety of growing up.
“All of a sudden, it wasn’t cool to be one of the boys anymore.”
She began to tell a story of how a male friend had said, “in front of our whole group, ‘Kristen’s not a girl. What is she?’ And I just died. It was a totally clichéd, very real insecure breakdown moment, when I was like, ‘I f**king hate myself.’ ”
She continued, “So many people say, ‘Oh, it must have been so easy for you.’ You think because I’m an actor that I didn’t have a normal progression of self-hatred?”
Prior to Twilight, she was in the Jodie Foster thriller, Panic Room. Of that time, she said, “Between ages 15 and 20, it was really intense. I was constantly anxious. I was kind of a control freak. If I didn’t know how something was going to turn out, I would make myself ill, or just be locked up or inhibited in a way that was really debilitating.”
Unlike other starlets, Stewart doesn’t seem to be worried about having a pristine image. “I have an ability to persevere that I didn’t have before. It’s like when you fall on your face so hard. And the next time, you’re like, ‘Yeah, so? I’ve fallen on my face before.’ ”
[Photo by Summit Entertainment]
