Marie Osmond ‘Literally Wept’ Over the Way She Abused Her Health

Marie Osmond has been very open about her struggles with her weight and body image over the years, but in a new interview, the country singer reveals her battles were even more serious than fans knew previously.

“I have made peace with how mean I’ve been to [my body] through the years, especially being a younger girl,” the 64-year-old singer says as part of Yahoo! Life's body image series, It Figures.

Osmond reveals that she developed body dysmorphia early on in her entertainment career in response to the pressure to be thin, which she deeply regretted later on after abusing her health with a series of extreme dieting measures.

“It’s really important to make peace, just from a psychological standpoint, and to apologize for all the abuse," Osmond says. "You know, there was a time where I literally wept for how I treated me, and just thought what a horrible thing I did to myself.”

She says her body image struggles began when she was appearing alongside her brother, Donny Osmond, on the Donny & Marie musical variety show as a teenager.

“I’ve been open about producers taking me into parking lots and telling me that at 103 pounds I was a fat pig,” she states.

“I got down to like, 93 pounds. ... It created this body dysmorphic idea that I had to be skinny to be on TV or to be in the entertainment business or to be accepted," Osmond shares.

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She realized that she had an unhealthy view of her own body when she felt horrified by seeing herself in the mirror, Osmond says, but continued an unhealthy series of diets for years and years.

“... I did continue, you know, to not eat and fast for days and then eat a big meal," she shares. "Once you do that to yourself, you are on a yo-yo the rest of your life. You screw up your metabolism.”

She was unable to break that cycle until she tried Nutrisystem in 2007, in what she calls a "last-ditch effort." She was so happy with how the system changed her approach to food that she became the brand's spokesperson.

“Food was no longer my enemy," Osmond observes. "I didn’t have to overthink it. I didn’t have to weigh it or measure it or shop it. I never felt deprived."

These days, Osmond says she's feeling better about herself than ever, and she's just trying to live in as healthy a manner as possible.

“The best body image that you can put out there for anybody is, how active do you want to be? Not how you should be. But what do you want? I want to be able to do everything,” she states. “If I could go back, I would have saved so many years of stressing.”