Lili Reinhart Reveals She Dealt With Severe Body Dysmorphia While Filming 'Riverdale'

'Riverdale' actress Lili Reinhart recently revealed that she struggled with body dysmorphia while filming her final episode of "Riverdale." The actress was one of the show's original cast members, which started as far back as 2017.

Over the years, Reinhart stood out as a body positivity advocate on several occasions. The 26-year-old has spoken up about her struggles with her body, including those days she had a particularly bad body image. Reinhart has also called out a number of celebrities concerning how they projected their views on others.

In a recent interview, the "Riverdale" star talked about how she developed body dysmorphia at a young age and how it had gotten better for her over the years. Reinhart also revealed that while filming the last season of "Riverdale," she looked back at herself at 19 and found her current look lacking.

Read on to learn more.

Reinhart joined Dr. Daniel Amen in his series, "Scan My Brain," and spoke about how she faced a recent spiral in her mental health after seeing her noticeable body changes on camera. The actress revealed that she often compared how she looked now to herself at 19 when she first started on "Riverdale."

Reinhart said, "I'm constantly exposed to pictures of myself all the time on social media, on my show, pictures of me on my show, which started when I was 19. So I'm sort of constantly comparing what I look like now to what I looked like when I was 19, a child."

The 26-year-old disclosed that constantly comparing her body with her younger self made her "afraid of the changes that have been happening." Reinhart explained the comparison placed her in a constant tussle with herself.

"It's me vs. me. Me from a couple years ago vs. me now and thinking, how do I get back to that? How can I look like that again?" the "Look Both Ways" actress said.

During the interview series, Reinhart talked about the more recent changes she faced as she grew older, revealing that they became increasingly more challenging for her to deal with. The actress shed light on her struggle with weight gain and said she had a tough time shooting the final season of "Riverdale" because it was the most weight she had ever had.

"Shooting my show [Riverdale] and having that weight gain basically documented on camera, episode by episode, week by week of my life, my weight fluctuation," Reinhart explained. "It felt very much like this massive problem, this thing that was taking up truly 90% of my brain capacity; I was barely thinking about anything else."

The 26-year-old revealed that most of her thoughts during that period revolved around her weight. This included her food intake, how she could shed some weight, her current look versus her previous one, and how everyone else looked different. "All of my thoughts were about my body, and it was very overwhelming and a very negative headspace that I was in," Reinhart said.

The "Hustlers" star further revealed that although she struggled with negative body image regularly, she was on her way out for her most trying period. Reinhart explained that she first developed body dysmorphia when she was only 13 years old, and at the time, she had to deal with "really bad" skin.

"I was doing my makeup in the dark," the 26-year-old recalled. "I would not want to look at myself, but then was also obsessively looking at myself to try and see how I looked at different angles, to look at the acne at different angles, and it's kind of like an 'I hate looking in the mirror, but I have to' obsessive sort of component there."

Reinhart explained that during the previous months, she often looked at her body in the mirror "obsessively" due to her weight gain and continuously became more uncomfortable with her job and its public nature.

Due to how she felt about her body most days, Reinhart revealed that she sometimes found it challenging to advocate body positivity. The actress explained, "It's hard when I very much try to preach the idea of loving yourself and accepting yourself, and you don't have to fit a one-size-fits-all image in your life, especially as an actor."

Reinhart further explained that she sometimes felt like a "fraud" when she thought about looking like other people over her own look despite promoting body positivity messages to her fans. The 26-year-old went on to say that it was "OK" because besides dishing out her self-love messages, she was "also still learning them myself."

The actress went on to explain that she had not yet mastered being positive about her body, and sometimes she felt bad about how she looked. However, during those moments, Reinhart revealed that she was always "empowered to talk about them and be vocal about them."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpfJyf8-Q3I