Model and actress Kaia Gerber has revealed she has experienced “disordered eating” in her life and has struggled with people commenting on her body. The 24-year-old stars in Ryan Murphy’s latest thriller series The Shards, based on the best-selling novel of the same name, set in a 1980s Los Angeles prep school amid a wave of murders by a local serial killer.
Speaking to Vogue
Before moving into film and TV, Gerber walked numerous catwalks, following in the footsteps of her mother, US supermodel Cindy Crawford. In an interview with Vogue, Gerber said her body has been a point of conversation, especially in the media, and that she is often compared to her mother.
She said: “We’re clearly in one of those cycles right now where people are very, very, very thin. As someone who’s been thin most of my life, I’ve always been compared against my mom — like, ‘what’s wrong with Kaia?’ I’m so jealous of my mom’s body. I would have loved to be born with boobs and a butt. People have always commented on my body, which is hard because I’m not always ready to comment on my own body. I’ve had disordered eating in my life.”
Mental health context
According to the NHS website, an eating disorder is a mental health condition where people use the control of food to cope with feelings and other situations, which could include eating too much or too little or worrying about weight or body shape.
Gerber added: “People are like, ‘You look terrible,’ and it doesn’t exactly make you go, ‘Oh, good. Let me get over this mental illness then!’ Negativity has never saved someone’s life.”
Nepo baby status
Gerber acts opposite Homer Gere, son of her mother’s ex-husband Richard Gere, who has largely stayed out of the spotlight until landing a role in the latest series of Euphoria. Gerber said she wears her “nepo baby” status without fear, knowing she has “only ever benefited in my career from it,” and warned Gere that he has more to prove because of his upbringing.
She added: “I also find myself doing it to other nepo babies, thinking, like, ‘okay, show me why you deserve this job’. I said to Homer — because the concept is daunting to him, having lived as an adult so far without that perception, whereas I sort of went through it when I wasn’t fully sentient – I said to him, ‘Homer, unfortunately with this show, it’s not like you’re just any unknown actor and people will judge you as an unknown actor. But what that’s done for me is make me want to work harder’.”
Anyone who thinks they may have an eating disorder is advised to see a GP as soon as they can.
