The 20-year-old reality star also opens up about her new book, 'Live Fearless.'
Sadie Robertson is letting people into her world.
The 20-year-old Duck Dynasty star, who recently released her new book, Live Fearless, sat down with ET's Sophie Schillaci on Tuesday to talk about dealing with fear, overcoming her eating disorder and setting the record straight on whether Dancing With the Stars triggered her unhealthy habits.
In September, Robertson revealed that she struggled with an eating disorder a year after competing on the dance show in 2014. She shared details on how counting calories and measuring her body overtook her life, but she ultimately was in a much better place.
"I love Dancing With the Stars and I love my family out there. Mark [Ballas] is like a brother to me. He's the best partner ever, the whole cast, the whole crew, they're amazing. Those headlines made me so sad," Robertson expressed about the rumors that DWTS was the cause for her eating disorder. "The thing [was], it was all me. I was scared to do it. I was afraid of comments. I was afraid of the judges, I was afraid of what people might think of me, all these different things. I was encrypted in fear. So it was a me problem, not a Dancing With the Stars problem."
"It was what I had to face during that time, which was overcoming fear, and to me I look back at that season of my life and that was when fear was conquered," she explained. "I will always look back on that and say, 'Thank goodness that happened because I had to grow up so much in those three months.' It helped me and it made me walk so much more confidently and so much stronger."
While a lot of people associate her time on the show with the beginning of her body image problems, Robertson clearly reiterated "it has nothing to do with Dancing With the Stars."
"That was a lie. I saw the headline on that and hear it from my voice, right now: I love Dancing With the Stars and everybody involved," Robertson stated. "It's funny, Mark texted me that night and asked, 'Did you say this?' and I said, 'Are you kidding, no I didn’t say that. Dude, you're my brother.'"
"It has everything to do with what I was walking in with that season of my life. And what happened was...when you get to a state of your body looks really good for some reason or another -- for me, I was dancing eight hours a day -- of course you're going to look good and that's not always going to be a reality," she explained.
"When I came away from that my mindset was, 'I have to be that. I'm now not good enough because I'm not where I was,' which got me to an unhealthy place because, for me, the only reason to obtain that was going down this cycle of not good things," she continued. "That's whenever it got warped. So it wasn’t DWTS, it was me coming out of that and having the unhealthy view of my body. And whenever you have anxiety, whenever you have fear that's gripping you and whenever you also take away any confidence you have of yourself, that’s a very scary place to be because it literally silences your voice. It was all in that same time period."
Robertson admitted that she started "striving to look" the way she thought she should, which she understands was "unrealistic and unhealthy for me to do." Her next step was to rid herself of toxic people and stop putting "value to the comments of how I was supposed to look."
"It was unhealthy and so consuming of your mind. And whenever you do that, you really can't see yourself, one, for who you are and two, for what your purpose to do [is] because you're distracted by what you [think you're] supposed to look like," she shared. "That's really sad, and that's where a lot of people find themselves."
"So for me, I had to get rid of the lies of the people that were talking in my ears. I had to get rid of looking at the comments and all that stuff. And look at myself and say, 'OK, Sadie. Who are you?'" she said. "And I'll never forget whenever I did that, when I got some things out of my life, and I looked in the mirror, I just started sobbing because I was like, 'Oh, my gosh, I don’t even know who this person is because I've been so distracted with what I'm supposed to look like that I forgot what I'm purposed to do.'"
And her purpose? To live her best life, share her story with others and, maybe, even work on a music career. Watch more of her interview in the video below.
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