Tammin Sursok has opened up about her shocking struggle with an eating disorder, which started when she first starred as Dani Sutherland on Home and Away.
The actress, 40, revealed on The Jess Rowe Big Talk Show podcast, she weighed just 42kg, lost two teeth and her stomach lining when she was just 24 years old.
Speaking with host Jessica Rowe, Tammin thought she was going to die and questioned why the show’s team didn’t notice her struggles.
‘It wasn’t a moment of rock bottom, it was years of rock bottom, and I was just like “I’m done”,’ she said.
‘I mean, it was a different time then, but how did they not know? How did they not say anything?’ Tammin added referring to the Home and Away team.
Tammin Sursok has opened up about her shocking struggle with an eating disorder, which started when she first starred as Dani Sutherland on Home and Away
The actress previously revealed how she tortured herself by eating meager amounts of food between the ages of 15 and 23 to maintain a ‘perfect’ figure.
She shared a photo of herself to Instagram at ‘the height of her eating disorder’ with a disclaimer that ‘pictures lie’.
‘This was the height of my eating disorder. That day I had eaten half a pack of rice thins and 5 cups of coffee,’ she wrote in the caption.
‘I remember how sad I felt. Ha. Pictures lie, don’t they? I was dying to be perfect.
‘The illusion of perfection that one cannot attain. For perfection is a road that never reaches a destination.’
The actress landed her breakout role on Home and Away after finishing Year 10 – which coincided with the beginning of her eating disorder.
The actress, 40, revealed on The Jess Rowe Big Talk Show podcast, she weighed just 42kgs, lost two teeth and her stomach lining when she was aged just 24
‘It wasn’t a moment of rock bottom, it was years of rock bottom, and I was just like “I’m done”,’ she said. Pictured in London in 2004, in the midst of her eating disorder
‘I was not well for 8 years. 15yrs old – 23 years old. 8 years of torture I put myself through to remain slim after I had been tormented as an overweight kid,’ Tammin wrote.
‘I feared that if I went back to that (being overweight) then the emotional pain would be worse than the physical one I was putting myself through.’
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Tammin said she has ‘never looked back’ since overcoming her eating disorder in 2006.
‘At 23, I hit rock bottom. I stopped wanting to be sick. And I’ve been healthy every day since,’ she wrote.
She encouraged her followers grappling with the same issues not to isolate themselves and to speak to someone because ‘secrets make you sick’.
She added: ‘When we embrace those imperfections we ARE “perfect”.’
Tammin starred on Home and Away between 2000 and 2004, before pursuing a short-lived musical career for two years.
By 2006, Tammin had relocated to Los Angeles and is now best known for her roles in U.S. dramas The Young and the Restless and Pretty Little Liars.
She married film producer Sean McEwen in 2011, and the couple share two daughters: 11-year-old Phoenix and five-year-old Lennon.
If you, or someone you know needs support relating to eating disorders, please call The Butterfly Foundation on 1800 33 4673. In an emergency, call 000.