Florence Welch felt she didn’t “deserve” to eat when she was in the grip of anorexia.
The ‘Florence + The Machine’ frontwoman has spoken in the past about her struggle with the eating disorder and although she has largely overcome her issues, she still has the same mindset towards food.
She told the June/July issue of Rolling Stone magazine when asked if she is happy: “I think part of it is long-term recovery from eating disorders. So much of that is rejecting nourishment — ‘I don’t deserve to eat, I don’t deserve to feel comfortable’.
“Anorexic thinking is still part of my life, even though the anorexia itself isn’t.”
Florence added she has also starved herself of love.
She said: “And so, with emotional intimacy, which is kind of like being fed, sometimes you can be like, ‘No, that’s too much, I don’t need it… actual intimacy, actual commitment? I really struggle with it.
“You can spend your whole life craving love, and when someone gives you real wholesome love, loving the real you, you’re like, ‘Why would you do that? I’m disgusting!'”
The ‘Shake It Out’ hitmaker previously admitted it was a “miracle” lockdown didn’t push her back into anorexia.
She said: “I really f****** empathise with anyone who did relapse in those two years because I think it was probably the closest I’ve ever thought about it.
“There were moments when I was like, ‘Should I be starting to cut back on my sugar? Or should I do a cleanse?’ And that for me is just a slippery slope.”
Florence has battled anxiety almost her whole life and struggled with anorexia as a teenager, with her conditioning worsening when she found global fame.
But she admitted her family didn’t know about her problems until they heard her 2018 track ‘Hunger’.
She said: “It opened up a lot of stuff in my family that was good in the end.
“It’s very hard to accept love. If you’ve been denying yourself nourishment in some way, you also have a tendency to deny yourself emotional nourishment.”
