Jackie Evancho is opening up about her personal struggles with an eating disorder and Osteoporosis.
The singer, 22, tells People magazine that she's struggled with disordered eating since she was a teenager, the America's Got Talent alum — who placed second in 2010, at just 10 years old — knew she needed help last year after she was hospitalized following a January 2021 car accident that broke her back in two places.
"They were abnormal breaks, breaks that you see in 80-year-olds," Evancho explains. "That's how I learned that my eating problems created osteoporosis. So now I'm a 22-year-old with osteoporosis."
But the bone-disease diagnosis didn't immediately compel Evancho to address her food issues.
"I had to eat [for my bones] to heal, and that really messed me up with my eating problems, because I was gaining weight to heal," she says. "Once I finally healed, my disorder said, 'OK, now you've got to be really hard on yourself to get all of that out of you . . . and then some.'"
Evancho eventually sought treatment last October at an inpatient facility. Her anorexia has been an ongoing health hurdle, just as her recovery continues to be a work in progress.