Reneé Rapp opened up about struggling with an eating disorder during her tenure in the “Mean Girls” musical, which was exacerbated by production staffers who, she said, “would say some vile fucking things to me about my body.”
In a new interview with The Guardian, the actor turned singer said her health was deteriorating to the point that her parents flew to New York to try to pull Rapp out of the show, which opened on Broadway in April 2018 and wrapped up early in March 2020 due to the pandemic.
Rapp played Regina George in the Broadway production and will reprise the role in a movie musical adaptation written by Tina Fey, to be released on Paramount+.
Rapp, who also recently exited Max’s “The Sex Lives of College Girls” to focus on her music career, said the end of “Mean Girls” on Broadway was beneficial for her health, but her parents are “more worried than they ever have been.”
“Eating disorders don’t just go away and like, you’re healed, like: ‘Sorry, I can eat again, ha ha!'” Rapp said. “It’s a lifelong thing. There are battles with addiction and whatever everywhere. I still struggle with it, but at least my parents know that I’ve been taken out of environments that were really harmful to my sickness, which is awesome and a huge win. They worry like hell, but they’re chilling, I guess.”
Rapp previously spoke out about her eating disorder ahead of filming Paramount+’s “Mean Girls: The Musical.”
“To be super-transparent, I loved doing‘Mean Girls’on Broadway, but I was also very sick,” Rapp told NME back in January. “I’ve struggled with an eating disorder my whole life and I had a lot of shit happen during that time. And so my biggest thing right now is trying to prepare myself to go into the filming environment with a way healthier mindset. Because I don’t want to fall back into anything.”
She also detailed some of the “heinous” things that were said to her during the show’s run, including an Instagram message that said she looked “distractingly big” onstage. Rapp was also asked by the press about being “a curvy Regina,” which made her uncomfortable. “I was a very mid-size person occupying a space that actually, I don’t really think was mine to take,” she said of being hailed as a plus-size role model.
On Aug. 18, Rapp released her debut album “Snow Angel.” She is currently on tour through March 2024.
