As someone who has struggled with weight issues my entire life, I always feel bad for celebrities when everyone comments on their body. Weight issues can be the result of many factors, and the comments people make can stick with you for the rest of your life.
One celebrity who knows all about this is Jonah Hill, who recently opened up to Ellen DeGeneres about his weight fluctuation, and how people's comments affected him.
Hill was on Ellen talking about his new movie, Mid90s, which he wrote and directed, that follows the life of a young teen who s looking for acceptance from his peers. The 21 Jump Street actor has fluctuated in weight for many years, and it seems that no matter how he looks, someone always has something to say.
"I became famous in my late teens and then spent most of my young adult life listening to people say that I was fat and gross and unattractive," Hill told DeGeneres. "And it's only in the last four years writing and directing my movie, Mid90s, that I've started to understand how much that hurt and got into my head."
"I think everybody has a version of themselves - I call it like a snapshot - let's say, at some point in your life, of the person you're trying to kind of hide from the world. I really believe everyone has a snapshot of themselves from a time when they were young that they're ashamed of," Hill continued.
"For me, it's that 14-year-old overweight and unattractive kid who felt ugly to the world, who listened to hip-hop and who wanted so badly to be accepted by this community of skaters," he admitted. "Just feeling lonely, and maybe not understanding my own worth."
This snapshot of himself is what he based Mid90s off of. And even though Hill has lost a considerable amount of weight, and has established himself as a great actor with two Oscar nominations under his belt, he's still coming to terms with who he is and how people see him.
"It took a long time "• honestly, until right now "• for me to come out as the person, artist, mind, what I represent, how I feel, how I'd like to be spoken to, how I speak to the world in a way that actually represents who I am as a person as opposed to me trying to be something else that I'm not. I'm under construction like we all are."
The interview is extremely personal, as Hill rarely opens up about things so close to him. He's one of the more private celebrities in Hollywood, so seeing him give such an emotionally raw interview about his weight and struggles is really something.
He also promotes his new magazine, called "Inner Children," which interviews 12 people he "respects and admires," asking them if they can relate to having issues accepting who they were when they were younger, and how they learned to love themselves.
You can watch the entire interview with Hill and DeGeneres here, where he talks about his new film and how he used his own experiences to make it as authentic as possible.