IRISH X Factor star Janet Devlin has revealed she hid her eating disorder during the show so that fans wouldn’t copy her weight.
The 25-year-old singer was just 16 when she appeared on the eighth season of the popular programme, alongside Marcus Collins and eventual winners Little Mix.
She revealed to the Sisterhood podcast that she had already gone through a number of issues before she even stepped foot on the stage but tried to overcome them for the show.
She said: “Pre X Factor I had already had quite a big thing with depression… I’d already self-harmed, I’d already had anorexia, kind of gone through my first period of recovery from anorexia.
“Sexual assault, and a few other things that had happened before I even stepped onto TV and I think a big one definitely was the eating disorder.
“I know a lot of people feel the same way I do where like the less you eat and the more you get into the disorder, the quieter you become.”
She continued: “You don’t even really have the energy to even really speak and you just get so in your head.
‘SO EARLY IN MY RECOVERY’
“For me, that’s kind of where I was because I was still so early in my recovery.
“I made sure by the time I did TV I had gained all the weight back so that nobody would ever look up to me the way I looked up to certain celebrities who were too skinny.
“I didn’t want to be somebody’s method of self-destruction or inspiration for self-destruction so I made sure that was important, but I still carried around the mental scars of that in my head.”
After reaching the quarter final of the 2011 show, she said it was then that she turned to alcohol as she struggled to cope.
She explained: “I couldn’t accept that I had addiction issues or anything like that and there was a good two years of just solid pain, this painful existence and I was so lonely and just so confused.
HONEST CHAT
“I couldn’t figure out why I just didn’t feel right. I’d moved over to England at 16, had no mates, all I did was work 18 hours a day and then maybe get a weekend off.
“And as I had no mates, no social life and no hobbies in this country, I was like what the heck am I going to do now.
“Also at that time, I couldn’t be on my own, I couldn’t be in my own company because I hated myself so it was like, ‘How do I fast forward through this pain I’m currently existing in,’ and alcohol became the pacifier for that.
“I discovered it when I had insomnia, I used to just nightcap myself all the time and I quickly realised I could numb myself with that.”
And she said her music team would even just give her minimal time off ‘just so I wouldn’t go on a three-day bender and go missing.’
But at the age of 20, she went seeking help in Alcoholics Anonymous and counselling and urged anyone feeling bad about themselves to do the same.
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She added: “Realistically you can get therapy for 60 quid a session. How much are people spending on nights out these days?
“I don’t know because I’m an alcoholic so I don’t know but it’s way more than 60.
“So just skip a night out every once in a while and just go talk to a professional. What’s the big deal?”
