Alix Earle received nothing but love from her six million TikTok followers after she revealed her past battle with a “toxic” eating disorder last month.
“Before ever opening up online I was really scared that the response would be negative and it’s honestly just been the opposite,” the TikTok star, 22, exclusively told Pvnew at Heidi Klum’s 22nd annual Halloween party at Marquee New York on Tuesday night.
“It’s been super positive and I think I found a great community through it,” Earle, who was dressed as the White Witch from “The Chronicles of Narnia” added.
The influencer — who has also been vocal about getting a breast augmentation as well as her acne struggles — said she finds comfort in connecting with fans who share similar experiences.
“It’s also super therapeutic for me to find other people who struggle with the same issues so I would encourage people to open up online about whatever it is they’re going through,” she said. “Because you never know how many people you’re going to impact with that.”
Earle did note that sharing private matters with the public is a “personal choice” and not for everyone.
“Whatever you’re comfortable with,” she said when asked if there’s such a thing as oversharing. “I tend to share almost everything with my audience. I have a really close relationship with them but I definitely don’t think that’s for everyone and it’s definitely up to you.”
Last month, Earle broke down in tears as she revealed she had an eating disorder in high school on her “Hot Mess” podcast.
The social media personality, who graduated from Red Bank Catholic High School in New Jersey, said that her school was a “very, very toxic environment when it came to girls’ relationships with food.”
“I went from someone who had a very healthy relationship with food very quickly to someone who did not,” she said, explaining that she would count her calories and eat a small salad with no dressing for lunch.
“I would get stressed out if the numbers got too high, I would buy juice cleanses, like I was just so obsessed with this dieting culture,” she said.
“I just went down such a bad path with myself, with my body, with my image, and I started to have this sort of body dysmorphia I would look in the mirror and I would see someone way bigger than the person that I was,” she added.
Earle said she would come home from school, binge eat, and then feel so “guilty” that she would “purge.”
Fortunately, she was able to unlearn her dangerous eating habits when she started attending the University of Miami.
“I was just like so appreciative of the fact that I had girls telling me that it was OK to eat and we weren’t all gonna be competing with our bodies, and who was gonna weigh the least like that wasn’t a thing like that thought didn’t cross their mind, and I was so enamored by this I was like, ‘Wow this is so nice and refreshing and I don’t feel this toxic environment anymore,’” she said.
These days, the “Get Ready With Me” internet sensation is “healthier and happier” and “grateful” to be over the “very toxic cycle.”
“I’m able to be at this great place now with food where I don’t really think about this at all so just bringing this back up for me is just bringing back so many emotions that I forgot that I had with food,” she said.
