Madison De La Garza, who played the daughter of Eva Longoria‘s Gaby on Desperate Housewives, has opened up about the cyberbullying she received over her weight on the show and how it led to her developing an eating disorder.
Appearing on Elizabeth Vargas‘ Heart of the Matter podcast, De La Garza, who was just six years old when she first appeared on the ABC drama, spoke candidly about her mental health struggles and how the bullying affected her as a child.
“The reactions that I got to my character on Desperate Housewives, I mean, it was just shocking,” she said (per The Hollywood Reporter). “A lot of people came at it in a way that they were quote-unquote concerned for my health. I personally believe that that’s just not true. That it was a cover-up so that they could just judge a six-year-old.”
De La Garza, who is the younger half-sister of singer Demi Lovato, said that her parents restricted her online activity as a child, but she would sometimes visit sites like TMZ and YouTube and “spend a crazy amount of time reading these comments.”
Ron Tom / ©ABC / courtesy Everett Collection
“They said things like they wanted me to die because of what I looked [like]. It was just horrible, like, ‘ugly fat cow,’ and ‘I hope you get cancer and die because you’re so fat.’ Just horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible things, and this was when I was 6, 7, 8 years old,” she explained.
“Reading comments like that definitely affected my mental health,” she continued, “and ultimately played into me developing an eating disorder at a very young age.”
De La Garza revealed she would “starve herself” before going “into months of struggling with a binge eating disorder.” And even after entering recovery, these issues would return.
“Right now, I would like to say I’m about two years into recovery, and things are going really, really well,” she told Vargas. “Which is great to be able to say that, but I don’t think it’s something that will ever be completely gone or it will ever completely be fixed in that I think is the same as having an addiction.”
Vargas also asked the Bad Teacher actress if any of the Desperate Housewives cast or crew knew about the online bullying. De La Garza said there must have been at least some awareness as her weight and looks were part of her character’s story on the show.
“There was one episode where I went to school with a bunch of makeup on because girls in my class said that I wasn’t pretty enough to be her daughter,” she recalled. “So this was talked about literally in the script of the show. The whole joke of my character was that Eva was this thin beautiful model and her daughter turned out to be quite the opposite.”
However, she did say that the team would frequently compliment her and “go out of their way to tell me that I was beautiful,” including making sure she felt comfortable in her clothing.
“I was able to speak up and say, ‘Hey, I really don’t like the way I feel on these clothes. I feel very uncomfortable,’” she stated. “At one point, they let me bring in my own jeans because I kept telling them the way that these jeans [fit] — this fabric, this texture, it’s really bothering me. I can’t focus on my lines and they would let me bring in my own clothes to wear, so I would feel more comfortable.”
De La Garza also said that Longoria would go out of her way to make sure she felt “pretty” and “special.”
“[Longoria] made me feel like I was family, and if I ever did want to go to her with these things, I absolutely could’ve. I just… I felt so ashamed that these comments were even being written; I didn’t even want to talk about it.”
As for why she is opening up now, De La Garza explained that it’s “incredibly important” for people to know about the effects of cyberbullying and how it is still happening today.
“I think it’s really important that people are aware of that so they can look out for it and protect this next generation of children,” she concluded.
