Lily Collins is opening up about some personal and relatable struggles in her new book Unfiltered: No Shame, No Regrets, Just Me., a collection of essays about the things young women struggle with every day including body image, self-confidence, relationships, family, and dating.
"The book is a collection of different conversations I'm starting about topics that every young girl, I think, can go through," she told On Air with Ryan Seacrest via FaceTime Tuesday morning. "[It's] just anything that it means to grow up and become a young women, even things that a lot of guys can go through as well. But as a young person, you consider a lot of these things to be off limits or too taboo to discuss, and the second you start venting about it with friends, you realize you're not alone."
Like her character Ellen in To The Bone, the actress suffered from an eating disorder as a teenager. She first revealed her past struggle for the first time during an interview with IMDb Studio at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. Collins told OAWRS that the root of her eating disorder was the obsession to take control.
"A lot of the insecurities I talk about in the book came from a place of wanting to feel in control because the industry that we're in is, you're kind of out of control a lot. Especially when you're growing up and welcoming yourself into your new body," she said. "For me, I tried to control what was going on inside my brain."
She added: "I think a lot of people we're really surprised, but I think that's a good thing. It wasn't the purpose of me writing it, but I think that if that's something that can come of it, it's that you can't based on what you think you know."
Unfiltered is out now.