Award-winning actress Kerry Washington is opening up to her fans.
In a sit-down interview with Robin Roberts for a 20/20 special (airing Sept 24), the often-reserved actress reveals new information about her personal life. Titled, Kerry Washington: Thicker Than Water, Washington shares intimate details about her life including her secret battles with self-abuse and how she contemplated suicide.
In a preview clip of the special, the Scandal actress shared how by the time she went to college her relationship with food and her body had “become a toxic cycle of self abuse that utilized the tools of starvation, binge eating, body obsession and compulsive exercise.”
“I could feel how the abuse was a way to really hurt myself, as if I didn’t want to be here,” she told Roberts in the sit-down. “It scared me that I could not want to be here because I was in so much pain.”
She also admitted that she prayed for help with her eating disorder as the eating condition spiraled out of control.
“The first thing that put me on my knees — like the first time I got on my knees and prayed to some power greater than myself to say like, ‘I can’t do this, I need some help’ — was with my eating disorder,” she said.
Right before the clip ends, Washington shared how her parents unveiled new information from her parents that made her shocked.
Her memoir,Thicker Than Water, which releases on Sept 26, gives readers an intimate view into both her public and private life. According to the description, Washington “reveals how she faced a series of challenges and setbacks, effectively hid childhood traumas, met extraordinary mentors, managed to grow her career, and crossed the threshold into stardom and political advocacy.”
Washington will be hitting the road on Saturday for the book’s fall tour with the Bronx being the first stop. She’ll then head to New York, DC, Chicago, Atlanta, the UK and Florida for the remaining tour dates.