“Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” star Layla Taylor revealed a “weird” experience with fellow models that may have triggered her eating disorder that she’s struggled with for years.
“I’ve had weird experiences before,” Taylor prefaced the story while chatting with Page Six’s “Virtual Reali-Tea” hosts Evan Real and Danny Murphy.
“In a show that I walked in, I was hanging out with some of the models in the morning while we were getting our glam done, and I was like, ‘Does anyone want anything from Starbucks? I’m gonna DoorDash some food.’”
“This was before my eating disorder started to get bad again,” she noted. “And all the girls were like, ‘No, we don’t eat before shows.’”
Taylor shared that the negative experience reinforced her perceptions of the modeling industry that “you have to be bone thin” and “not eat.”
The reality TV star also opened up about the “really hard” rejection she faced from Ford Models — which was shown on Season 4 of the Hulu show.
“That rejection is someone physically looking at you and saying no. That’s obviously very hard, especially for someone like myself who deals with such bad body image issues and confidence issues to begin with.”
Now, Taylor is able to look back at the experience as a “blessing in disguise” because she has since signed with a modeling agency that “feels like home” to her.
“Especially with what I deal with internally. I needed an agency that was going to be friends over business and I feel like that’s what I found,” she explained.
In fact, the model’s 30-piece collection with Showpo, “Becoming by Layla Taylor,” launched on Monday and Taylor described it as “choosing yourself, over and over again.”
Last month, Taylor entered treatment for her “exhausting” eating disorder and stopped taking GLP-1 weight loss medication.
“For the past two years, I’ve been struggling silently with an eating disorder I believed I had left behind in high school,” the 25-year-old wrote via Instagram.
“Far before I touched [GLP-1 medications] I’ve had my struggles. It’s been lonely and exhausting, fighting a battle in my own brain while trying to show up like everything is okay and receive comments daily on my body.”
While calling her recovery “messy and far from linear,” Taylor admitted that she’s had good days and bad days in her journey.
“I’m still learning how to choose self-love over self-criticism,” she wrote. “Even this video seeing my body side-by-side is triggering; But I’m still fighting — not just for me, but because my boys deserve a healthy, present mom.”
If you or someone you know suffers from an eating disorder, call the free ANAD helpline at 1-888-375-7767.
