Portia De Rossi's Anorexia Battle: Lucky to Be Alive

SITTING CROSS-legged on a couch in her LA living room, Portia de Rossi takes a deep breath. It’s emotional for her to remember her battle with anorexia and bulimia-a struggle that intensified after she won a role on the hit TV series AllyMcBeal in 1998-and the pressure she felt to hide the fact that she was gay. Gone are the days of icing her arms so the veins wouldn’t protrude, or sprinting in the garage of a shopping mall after “bingeing” on sugarless gum. “I struggled with self-acceptance my entire life,” says the 5’6″ actress, 37, who at her lowest weighed 82 lbs. Now recovered (“I accept the way my body is”) and married to talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, 52, she is sharing her experience in a brutally honest memoir, Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain. “The book just poured out of me,” says de Rossi, who came out publicly in 2004. “It was cathartic.” These days, when she looks in the mirror, “I see the person that I was always supposed to be,” she says. In an exclusive excerpt and an interview with PEOPLE’s Julie Jordan, the actress opens up about her journey.

The alarm on my bedside table starts beeping. It’s 4:15 a.m.

It’s time for my morning workout. I have exactly one hour to run, do situps and leg lifts before I get in the car to drive 45 minutes to the set for my 6:00 a.m. make-up call. God, I feel like s**t. No matter how hard I run this morning, nothing can take away the damage done. As I slip out of bed and do deep lunges across the floor to the bathroom, I promise myself to cut my calorie intake in half to 150 for the day and to take twenty laxatives. But it’s not the weight gain from the six ounces of yogurt I ate last night that worries me. It’s the loss of self-control. I start sobbing as I lunge my way across the floor and I wonder how many calories I’m burning by sobbing.

In 1998 de Rossi had won the role of lawyer Nelle Porter in the hit show Ally McBeal. It was a dream come true, but one that, in her mind, required her to be someone she was not: sexy, thin and straight. The stress had begun taking a toll even before she set foot on-set.

I was excited, wondering what my new life would be like, but with the excitement came a little fear. I was gay. I knew being openly gay wasn’t an option but what if they-the press, the public, my employers-found out? The producers had made a mistake for sure. Apart from not being that fun and flirty leading-lady type I knew the character had to be, I just wasn’t good-looking enough for the role. I was okay at certain angles, but my profile was ugly (I knew from years of modeling) and my face was very large and round.

The diet I went on was the same one I had gone on six to eight times a year, since I did it to get ready for my first fashion show at age 12. 300 calories a day for seven days. Losing weight before starting my new job seemed like the professional thing to do.

She fit into her character’s size-6 clothes on her first day. That night she met her brother Michael, who lived with her, for dinner at a restaurant.

I kept ordering margaritas and eating enchiladas and when I was done with mine, I got to work on his. After the main course, I went back to the appetizers and ate the last of the corn chips with the puddle of salsa that was left in the stone bowl. I knew I’d done some damage. There was a dull ache in my gut and a layer of fat on the roof of my mouth that proved it. I stopped at 7-Eleven on the way home for food. As I’d already blown the diet I figured I might as well keep going-I might as well eat all the things I’d denied myself for the last few weeks. And I had to get it all done in one sitting because if I allowed myself to do this again-to eat all this food-I’d get fat.

Of course, I’d have to throw up after, but that was okay. I didn’t have work for the next two days so I had time to get rid of the dots above my eyes that were caused by my blood vessels bursting from purging. With that much pressure, something had to burst.

I had to eat in the car a block from my house and throw up in the street so my brother wouldn’t know. I started by eating a large bag of Cheetos. The orange color would serve as a marker during the purge. It would be a map almost, telling me how far I’d come an how much further I needed to go.

With Ally’s continued success, de Rossi began appearing in magazines. Her weight yo-yoed. After the second season, she was signed to be a L’Oreal spokeswoman. She met with stylists to be fitted for a commercial shoot.

I went into the dressing room an tried on jacket and skirts as they were handed to me. They were all size 4. My modeling card measurements-34, 24,35-had put me at a size 4. I tried on suit after suit. They didn’t fit. None of them. You can put on a brave face for only so long. I put one on for three hours before it cracked. There was an awful silence, then the stylist said, “Nobody told me she was a size 8.”

She began seeing a nutritionist, who set her caloric intake for optimum weight loss at 1,400 calories a day. Within weeks, de Rossi reset it to 800, hoping to get from 115 lbs. to 110.

“Good Morning, Portia.” Vera smiled as I walked into the fitting room. “Could you get any thinner? You just keep looking better and better. I hate you!” Vera laughed and wheeled in a rack of clothing. I started to undress and stood proudly in only a g-string and platform shoes. I felt liberated. I no longer had to worry about how I looked, or whether the clothes would fit or if I deserved to be on a hit TV show.

The first suit was too big, as was the second and the third. “Can you get 2’s and 4’s for the Skinny Minnie from now on,” Vera called to her assistant. “I need to lose twenty pounds-at least! Seriously, will you tell me how you did it?”

I wouldn’t have ever told her my secrets. I was successful at the one thing almost everyone wants to be good at, dieting. Besides, I couldn’t tell anyone what I ate. I could just imagine her face when I told her that if she wanted to achieve this level of success she’d have to eat two-thirds of an oatmeal sachet for breakfast, tuna with butter spray for lunch, a spoonful of ground turkey with butter spray for dinner and for a treat, Jell-O mixed with butter spray.

Down to 95 lbs. by December 1999-“a cushion” in case she regained-de Rossi was excited to show off her figure to her family in Australia.

Lying in bed Christmas morning, I felt thin. I could feel my hip bones and my ribs. I felt as though I could get on that scale and give myself the Christmas present of a good number, a number that would congratulate me for dieting successfully for eight months. The number would determine whether I had a happy Christmas or a miserable one. I looked down. 89. “Merry Christmas, Portia.”

Her family and friends grew more concerned. Finally, her brother Michael confronted her.

“Porshe, can I see you outside?” He turned away and walked out of the gym.

It was exciting almost. My brother had never pulled me away to talk seriously about anything. We got all the way to the car. He leaned on the hood with both hands, his broad back to me. “Porshe.” When he turned around, I could see that he was crying. I was shocked. “I’m just really worried about you. I can’t believe how thin you are.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I knew I was thin but not nearly thin enough for this reaction. If I’d worked out in a sweater so he didn’t see my arms he wouldn’t be reacting like this but I felt that now wasn’t the time to explain that. “Porshe …” He cried harder. As he inhaled to say what he was leading up to say, his breath caught. “You’re gonna die.”

Her weight had dropped to 82 lbs. She blacked out on the set of Who is Cletis Tout? in Toronto in 2000.

After collapsing in Toronto, I had no choice but to get help. I blacked out in the makeup chair and my private medical information seemed to be passed around and shared with anyone who cared to ask. They had me cornered.

Recovery didn’t feel like I was doing something good; it felt like giving up. I could no longer starve or I’d die. It was essential to eat. So I did. I ate everything in sight. I started by eating the healthy foods I’d missed: bran muffins, protein bars, granola, smoothies. But quickly the list began to include candy, cake, fried food. At the time I walked through the doors of the Monte Nido Eating Disorder Treatment Center in 2001, I had gone from 98 pounds to 125 pounds in four weeks. Just because I had stopped starving didn’t mean I didn’t still have an eating disorder.

With months of outpatient treatment, she slowly recovered. Now a vegan, she eats three meals a day plus snacks (“I don’t deny myself anything”) and never steps on the scale.

I didn’t decide to become anorexic. It snuck up on me disguised as a healthy diet, a professional attitude. Every time I restricted my calorie intake I would binge immediately after. I lived my life from day to day by weighing myself, and measuring my success or failure solely on weight lost or gained-just as I had done from the time I was 12. I’d measured my accomplishments and my self-worth on that scale for my entire life.

I met Ellen when I was 168 pounds and she loved me. She only saw the person inside. My two greatest fears, being fat and being fat and being gay, when realized, led to my greatest joy. If s ironic really, when all I’ve ever wanted is to be loved for my true self, and yet I tried so hard to present myself as anything other than who I am. Ellen saw a glimpse of my inner being underneath the flesh and bone, reached in and pulled me out.

Do I love myself just the way I am? Yes. (Well, I’m working on it!) But that doesn’t mean I love my body just the way it is. I’d still like thighs the size of my calves but the difference is that I’m no longer willing to compromise my health to achieve that anymore. I’m not even willing to compromise my happiness to achieve it, or for the thought of my thighs to take up valuable space in my mind. It’s just not that important.

When I sit quietly and silently thank the universe for all the blessings in my life, I start with Ellen and end with my thighs. I thank my body for not punishing me for what I put it through and for being a healthy vessel in which I get to experience this beautiful life.