Lily Collins has broken her silence about her most “toxic” relationship.
On Wednesday We Can Do It Hard podcast, in Emily in Paris star opens up about a terrible relationship she had in her “early 20s.” He admits:
“For me, my toxic romantic relationships were verbal and emotional abuse and made very small.”
“Small” seemed to be big with him. He remembered the name he would call her, which was less than one:
“She would call me ‘Lily Lily.’ You had to be ‘Little Lily’ and they would use bad words about me about what I was wearing and would call me a whore and all this.
She said the “derogatory words” did what she wanted – they left her “quite quiet and comfortable in silence and feeling like I had to make myself small to feel safe.”
related: Emily in Paris Lily’s Shoes Are Sent to the Podiatrist Every Week!
How did he make himself “small”? In one sense, quite literally. She has opened up about her battle with an eating disorder in the past, and it seems that this emotional abuse has driven her deeper. He explains how small animals react to predators:
“When prey feels threatened, they make themselves small. Maybe by not eating by making themselves look the most juicy and amazing and that’s where they feel the safest.
That is really heartbreaking.
Lily was left feeling “anxiety” and “panic” – emotions that keep surfacing, even though she is now 33 and happily married to a filmmaker. Charlie McDowell. He explains:
“The situation was very different 10 years ago to now … The panic that can still trigger me. Even though I am in the healthiest relationship, there may be moments that happen during the day when history goes back like that. It’s like a millisecond, or shorter than a millisecond. And your gut reacts, your heart starts beating, and suddenly you go back to the moment when he talked about you 10 years ago, but you’re not in that situation now and it’s a trigger and f**king hard. It’s scary very.”
We are so happy that Lily is doing better now. But as he said, that early relationship experience can scare you for years to come.
Lily had several high profile relationships during her early 20s. He is linked to Taylor Lautner for a while when they starred in 2010 which kidnap. That was supposed to be when she was about 20. But it didn’t last long — they reportedly split before the movie even aired!
In 2012, Lily dated Zac Efron about three months. But it is highly believed that he has bad feelings towards people; they were friendly enough to co-star together again years later Ted Bundy puppet Very evil, horribly evil and evil in 2019.
His next relationship was “10 years ago.” They are dating The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones co-star Jamie Campbell-Bower from July 2012 to August 2013. They seem to have had a rocky relationship, breaking up and then getting back together for a bit in 2015 before parting for good. In between they briefly dated the Aussie actor Thomas Cocquerel in early 2014.
And the last relationship of her early 20s will be with Chris Evans. He and Avengers star found in Vanity Fair Oscar party and appear on several dates in 2015.
Now, of course, we never heard anything of abuse, verbal or otherwise, about this guy. We don’t know who Lily is talking about here, and she’s not ready to say her name. But we love that they feel strong enough to do that behavior. I hope whoever is responsible sees their mistake…and how it will affect people for years to come.
[Image via Andres Otero/Joe/Mr. Blue/MEGA/WENN.]