RBD’s Anahí Reveals She Suffered Anorexia And Bulimia That ‘Almost Killed Her’

In a new interview, Anahí, 40, opened up about her years-long battle with anorexia nervosa and bulimia during the peak of her RBD fame. As she put it, it was “the biggest nightmare of [her] life.”

The Mexican star’s interview with journalist Joaquín López-Dóriga felt like an important first for her. She explained, “For me, this is liberating. I’ve never spoken like this, not even close, with anyone like today.”

“What people know about me is the ‘character’ that the media told you I was,” she explained. “But this is me, this is my story, and it’s also important that my heart can finally be free, and to be able to tell you. There’s nothing wrong with talking about how your life was.”

“I wanted to do this,” she added. “I wanted to tell the story of my life, for real.”

At that point, Anahí said the next part of the interview would get “intense,” circling around the time she was around 14 years old. At that time, she had already had a 12-year acting career (yes, she started at just two years old on the set of “Chiquilladas”). Still, like all of us, she described how she had an awkward stage in her early teens: “You’re a weird thing, where your arms grow first,” she laughed.

And while most of us felt pretty awkward around that time, Anahí also felt the pressures of the limelight. Even more, she recalled how certain television producers made her question her weight.

Anahí recalled how a TV producer called her “gordita” and hinted at her to lose weight

First, the Mexico-City born actress recalled how at just 14 years old, she got the chance to audition for a Televisa novela called “Quinceañera.” She was so excited, thinking to herself, “Wow, I want to do that telenovela.”

Calling out the TV industry for being “cruel,” she remembered going to the “Quinceañera” producer’s office with her mom. During the meeting, they talked about the possibility of Anahí starring on the show.

While the producer said it would be “amazing” for Anahí to star in it, he soon told her something she would never forget. “Anahí, protagonists are skinny. Protagonists are very pretty. And you’re chubby. You have to work on yourself so you can do the novela.”

While she did not name the producer who told her that, she said, “he had no idea how his words marked a human being.”

“That day, I met a part of me I had never met. I met the fear of being myself,” she explained. “At that point, I didn’t feel enough.”

“I suffered for years from anorexia nervosa and bulimia that almost killed me,” she added.

“From that moment on, my essence changed,” she said. “Everything changed… I believed I wasn’t enough. I believed it.”

She later added, “I didn’t need money. I didn’t need anything, I worked a lot. I needed affection. And of course I had it, I repeat, my parents love me. But I sometimes needed someone to grab my hand tight.”

The star explained that the press mocked her on live TV, even putting food in front of her

Anahí later admitted that she already had a “deep problem” with anorexia and bulimia while filming the novela “Mujeres Engañadas” at 15 years old.

“I got to weighing 38 kilos [around 84 pounds],” she revealed. “I was doing really bad.”

“It was an avalanche,” she recalled, describing the “drastic change” that took hold on her body.

At that point, the media attention was almost too much to take. “The press was super cruel. Body shaming was a horrible issue. They would mock me on shows, make me eat, put food in front of me.”

She said this occurred on shows like “El Gordo y la Flaca,” “La Oreja,” and other shows. “They would laugh at my problem. First, I tried to deny it, but later it became so evident, I faced it and tried to express it. But it was worse, because they mocked me a lot.”

“I was dealing with my sickness, my emotional and mental problems,” she remembered painfully. “Because it is an emotional and mental sickness that eats away at you.”

“And on top of that, I was exposed. Exposed and judged.”

As one X user wrote about that part of the interview, “The media owes an apology to Anahi for making those anorexic ‘jokes’ while she suffered from an eating disorder.”

While the “Rebelde” star said she had a brief period where she got better, she later “relapsed.” That time, things got even worse.

“I could go five or six days without eating. Sometimes, I would eat a grapefruit. Sometimes, I would eat ice to trick my stomach,” she revealed. She then turned to face her fans directly: “I don’t want you to get ideas, please. But I have to talk about it.”

“Then, when I couldn’t go any longer, I would binge,” she said. “And yes, like so many people ‘joked’ about, I would vomit a lot.”

At that moment, she took the time to thank her cousin Alicia for “saving her life” by taking her to the hospital. In one of the most intimate parts of the interview, the 40-year-old star revealed she had experienced heart failure.

“We were in [Alicia’s] car,” she remembered. “I told her, ‘I feel bad. Something is wrong, I feel bad.’ My heart was going super fast, and I felt that my stomach was turning inside.”

Her cousin told her, “No, Ani, no.” At that point, she took her to the hospital.

“Thank God. Because I arrived with cardiac arrest, horrible. I was 18 years old,” she said. “It is documented.”

“They took me to the emergency room,” she explained. “They saved my life. What they explained to me was that my potassium levels got so low, and my electrolytes and everything [were so low], that my heart… it sped up my heart rate.”

“I don’t know what happened. My heart couldn’t deal with it anymore,” she said. The star added that she “doesn’t know where she would be” without her cousin and the hospital staff. “My body couldn’t go on.”

Anahí revealed that she had to stay “two or three weeks” in the hospital while helping her improve her blood levels. Still, she recalled how her eating disorder continued to affect her, even while at the hospital.

“I would remove IV because I thought it would make me gain weight,” she said. “Imagine how bad I was doing.” She also explained that she made herself vomit while in the hospital. Shortly after, on her 19th birthday, she realized something had to change.

However, calling her past eating disorder an “addiction,” she described how difficult it was to get better. “It took me a long time.”

As one X user recently wrote, the video made them realize “how brave” Anahí has been:

Moreover, one X user commented on how “strong and genuine” the star remained throughout her career, even while enduring “the harshest reality with her eating disorder”: