Singer JoJo claims she was pressured into taking diet supplements and only eating 500 calories a day by her former record company.
The Leave (Get Out) singer, whose real name is Joanna Noëlle Blagden Levesque, explained in detail how she “injected” herself and stuck to a restrictive diet in order to drop weight quickly, in a new interview with PopSugar on Thursday.
The early-2000s hitmaker spoke about the body-image pressure she faced in the music business.
“I was under a lot of pressure with a company I was at previously, and they wanted me to lose weight fast.”
“So they got me with a nutritionist and had me … on all these supplements, and I was injecting myself — this is a common thing ‘the girls’ do, by the way — it makes your body only need certain calories, so I ate 500 calories a day. It was the most unhealthy thing I’ve ever done. And then I gained all the weight back,” the 25-year-old revealed.
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“I was upset that I even subscribed myself to the standard they wanted me to be at, but I felt like if I don’t do this my album won’t come out… and it didn’t… so it’s not like it even worked,” the Massachusetts native, who is now working with a new label, noted.
The How To Touch A Girl singer was between 17 and 18 years of age when she took the injections, but the process ended up making her feel worse about herself.
The singer learned not to succumb to the demands of others, and now refuses to let them make or break her own decisions.
“What you think about yourself and the decisions you make is what’s most important, you have to live with yourself,” she said.
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This is not the first example (and probably won’t be the last) of a celebrity who has felt pressure from others to lose weight quickly. Pop singer Kesha checked into a treatment centre in 2014 for anorexia and bulimia.
Her mother claims both Kesha’s former manager David Sonnenberg and her producer Lukasz Gottwald, also known as Dr.Luke, were to blame for pushing the pop star over the edge.
Other celebrities who’ve faced pressure from studio and label representatives include Kelly Clarkson and Jennifer Lopez (during the beginning of her career).
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https://www.instagram.com/p/BHurmx-gIg6/?taken-by=iamjojo
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JoJo, currently on tour with Fifth Harmony, has a new album set to be released on October 14, titled Mad Love.
After 10 years of silence, she released her brand-new single, F*** Apologies featuring rapper Wiz Khalifa, on Thursday.
JoJo’s last album was The High Road, which dropped in 2006.
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