Actress Shailene Woodley has opened up about the health challenges she faced early in her career.
Best known for the Divergent film series and the TV drama Big Little Lies, the 32-year-old said she “couldn’t walk for longer than five minutes at a time”.
The revelation comes after she previously told the New York Times in 2020 that she was “very, very sick” while filming the four Divergent films between 2013 and 2016.
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Now four years on, she further opened up about the difficult time in a podcast interview.
“I haven’t spoken about what exactly it was because that feels like a personal thing that I don’t need to disclose,” Woodley said on the She MD podcast.
“It got to the point where I was losing my hearing.
“I couldn’t walk for longer than five minutes at a time without having to lay down for hours and hours and hours and sleep. Everything I ate hurt my stomach.”
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The actress explained it was a “long journey” filled with a “conflation of issues and diagnoses”.
She said that “a lot of other things came from feeling so much discomfort physically” adding the experience compounded her mental health struggles, identity confusion, fears of food and body dysmorphia.
“It was a journey that ultimately physically resolved itself.”
The actress was just 21 when she starred in the Divergent series alongside Theo James.
Now in her 30s, Woodley said she was “very healthy”.
“I’m so happy to be able to say that.”
