Perrie Edwards just revealed that her mental health battle left her too scared to eat.
The British pop star, who suffers from agoraphobia, revealed this week that she would be frightened to call room service for a meal while touring the world with her girl group, Little Mix.
“Even when Little Mix became quite successful and we were touring the world and we were in hotel rooms and I'd be starving, could chew off my own leg, but I'd be too scared to ring,” the 32-year-old told the Mental As Anyone podcast.
Perrie said she that she would “practice what I was going to say” and practice it in her head repeatedly before she would gather the courage to speak.
The singer also explained how her agoraphobia became crippling that it led her to seek therapy, “It just felt like every time I left my front door, I was going to die,” she said.
Perrie believes that her agoraphobia was triggered by the rare health condition she has suffered from since birth, oesophageal atresia.
Oesophageal atresia atresia (EA) is described as “a birth defect where the oesophagus ends in a blind-ended pouch instead of connecting to the stomach, preventing food from reaching the digestive system.”
Perrie also discussed how her agoraphobia severely affected her career: “With work and stuff, I thought, is it even worth it for me anymore? I don't know if it is... I don't want to feel that way every time I leave the house and go to work.”
“I have therapy every Friday. We got to the point in one of the sessions, and I kept saying, like, sometimes when I'm feeling anxious and I'm in a car and I'm in traffic or in certain situations, I start to feel a bit trapped,” she opened up.
‘And we kind of discovered that my whole upbringing and my whole childhood were in a body that wasn't working, and that must have felt almost a little bit claustrophobic – being in a body that wasn't doing the right functions. But I couldn't escape it, and I couldn't help it,” Perrie Edwards concluded.