Emily in Paris: How Lily Collins Prepared for That Big Singing Moment
Lily Collins is looking back on a dark time in her life.
The Emily in Paris star recalled the abuse she suffered in a relationship during her early 20s, sharing that it changed the way she carried herself at the time.
“My romantic, toxic relationship was a lot of verbal and emotional abuse and being made to feel very small,” she shared during the Feb. 6 episode of the We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle podcast. “I became quite silent and comfortable in silence and feeling like I had to make myself small to feel super safe.”
Lily said her ex would use “awful words,” calling her “Little Lily” and “whore” as a way to bring her down.
Ultimately, according to the 33-year-old, her body started reacting to the relationship to a point where it made her physically ill.
“My skin was breaking out. I was having these panic attacks and I had kidney infections,” Lily explained. “All of these weird physical manifestations but I didn’t, at that time of my life, put the two and two together as your body is telling you, ‘This is not something you’re supposed to be in.'”
And though the Inheritance actress said a decade has passed since that relationship, she can still be triggered by it to this day.
“Even if I’m in the most healthy relationship, there can be a moment that happens throughout the day where history comes back like that,” she said. “Your gut reacts, your heart drops and all of the sudden you’re taken back to that moment where they said that thing to you 10 years ago but you’re not in that situation now.”
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Lily added that her husband Charlie McDowell,
