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Emily Ratajkowski says she ‘got really skinny’ because she was ‘not OK’ in her marriage

“I was really, really unhappy."
/ Source: TODAY

Emily Ratajkowski is opening up about some dark times she experienced leading up to her divorce. 

The writer and model, 31, filed for divorce from her husband of four years, producer Sebastian Bear-McClard, in September.

“I didn’t have the courage to leave for a long time,” Ratajkowski said in a March 9 episode of the “Going Mental with Eileen Kelly” podcast.

“I was really, really unhappy. I was 100 pounds and I had just had a baby,” she continued. “I got really skinny because I was not OK. I tried everything else. I tried to take antidepressants. I was sure that something was wrong with me.”

Ratajkowski and Bear-McClard welcomed a son, Sylvester Apollo Bear, in 2021. 

As she navigates being a single mom, Ratajkowski, who hosts the "High Low with EmRata" podcast, said she has been to therapy, and is learning new ways to cope and prioritize her own needs.

Emily Ratajkowski
Ratajkowski talked about learning to value her own needs.Axelle / Bauer-Griffin / FilmMagic

She said she used to be “such a pick-me girl,” meaning that she abandoned her “own priorities in order to be loved, or to be chosen.”

This extended to her career, she said, because she was “appealing to a lot of powerful men, essentially.”

“I just totally abandoned my own boundaries and my own ideas of what is important," she said. "Now I’m super-grounded in them. I have basically curated my life exactly to how I want it to be."

 The “My Body” author also talked about learning to feel whole without a partner.

“We have this — especially women — every piece of media we consume from the second we’re born is basically this idea of finding a partner that completes and validates you,” she said.

Now, she said, she’s in a place where “it’s almost hard to imagine somebody coming in and being additive and bringing things to the table.”

Ratajkowski also shared that this is the first time in her life she has truly been single, describing herself as a “serial monogamist” from the age of 14. 

Now, while she is dating, she said she is in no rush to find a partner just for the sake of being in a relationship.

These days, she is looking for somebody “independent” and who has “their own confidence,” and does not feel threatened by her success.

“I look for good-hearted people, people who are thoughtful, people who have good politics, people who are funny,” she said.

She also shared the wisdom she gained throughout the process of ending her previous relationship.

“I think so much of what I’ve learned, coming out of that relationship, is to trust your instincts,” she said. “And gaslighting is a real thing … I didn’t understand that it was actually going to be so nice to come back to myself and return back to how I see the world."

If you or someone you know is suffering a mental health crisis, call the NAMI helpline at 800-950-6264.