Supermodel, author, and mom Emily Ratajkowski was married to film producer Sebastian Bear-McClard for four years, but filed for divorce last year after reports of infidelity. They share a two-year-old son Sylvester Apollo.
Now, in an unguarded new interview with Eileen Kelly on the Going Mental podcast, she reveals the extreme toll that marriage took on her mentally, and physically.
"I didn't have the courage to leave for a long time. I was, like, really, really unhappy, and I was, like, 100 pounds,” she tells Kelly on the Going Mental podcast.
“I'd just had a baby, and I got really skinny because I was not okay," she says.
"Every piece of media we consume from the second we are born is basically this idea of finding a partner that completes and validates you," she continues."Plus, I had just had a child so I really wanted to have that family, so it was especially hard for me to totally walk away."
The My Body author then reveals how her marriage caused her to doubt her sanity and her approach to conflict resolution. "I tried everything else. I tried to take antidepressants. I was, like, sure something was wrong with me."
"So much of what I learned coming out of that relationship is to trust your instincts and gaslighting is a real thing," she continues.
Gaslighting occurs when your partner tries to make you doubt something you know to be true, like your experience, or even your own eyes. Originating from the 1938 play "Gaslight" where a husband tries to convince his wife that the gaslit lamps aren't dimming, even though she can see it happening with her own eyes, the goal of gaslighting is to make you doubt your sanity, often encouraging you to change yourself, rather than accepting criticism on their bad behaviour.
Now, Emily says she has gained a greater appreciation for her instincts due to the fallout of her marriage. "I didn't understand that it was actually gonna be so nice to come back to myself and, like, return back to how I see the world, how I understand things, my instincts."
While she refused to speak about the straw that broke the camel's back (ie, was he unfaithful, as the rumour mill suggested?), she did say her boundaries were crossed, making it easy for her to walk away.
"I'm a very, like, on-and-off person. I will literally, like, sit with people that I love—friends, family, whatever—for so long, and then if there's a line that's crossed, I'm like, 'Okay. That was it,'" she says. "For me, it was so clear, and then it just became clearer and clearer and clearer."
Now, if someone like the gorgeous and talented Ratajkowski can get cheated on, then the rest of us are doomed, right? That’s what host Kelly suggested to which the model replied, "It was so interesting that that was the reaction to that news, because I was just like, 'Duh. Men are trash, ladies.' And it doesn't matter who you are, how perfect you are, whatever."
Without naming anyone by name, she did speak a bit about her current romantic life. She has most recently been linked to actor Eric Andre after he posted a couple of racy naked photos of the pair to his official Instagram on Valentine’s Day. All she says about that is, "I just started dating someone that I kind of like. "But if you talked to me four weeks ago, I would've been like, 'Absolutely [get the ick].' Now, I'm just like, 'Oh, well, he's kind of great.'"