Reneé Rapp recalls comments from Mean Girls musical staff exacerbating her eating disorder

Rapp has been very open about her struggles with eating disorders in the past. In a recent interview with The Guardian, however, she shared that her condition was exacerbated during her time on Broadway by hateful comments from some (unnamed) members of the production who “would say some vile fucking things to me about my body.”

It got so bad, she says, that her parents actually flew to New York at one point to try to pull her out of the show. (The pandemic eventually did it for them.) While shifting her focus to music has been largely beneficial—Rapp just released her debut LP Snow Angel and also recently announced that she was leaving HBO’s Sex Lives Of College Girls—she says her parents worry more than ever, because “they know more now.”

“Eating disorders don’t just go away and like, you’re healed, like: ‘Sorry, I can eat again, ha ha!’ It’s a lifelong thing,” she continued. “I still struggle with it, but at least my parents know that I’ve been taken out of environments that were really harmful to my sickness, which is awesome and a huge win.”

Rapp is set to reprise her turn as North Shore High’s queen bee in big screen Broadway adaptation Mean Girls: The Musical, which will presumably resume production whenever the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes conclude. Hopefully, this experience is a little less “you can’t sit with us” and a lot more “cake made out of rainbows and smiles.”