A FORMER child star has shown off her bold new look 14 years after she was cruelly “fat-shamed” on TV.
The actress has taken to Instagram to share a slew of bare-faced selfies featuring her septum piercing.
Madison De La Garza played Juanita Solis on Desperate Housewives Credit: Instagram
Madison recalled how she was ‘fat-shamed’ on the show Credit: Instagram
Madison began starring on the show when she was just six-years-old Credit: Getty
Madison (right) told how one of the storylines focused on how she was too ‘fat’ to be Gabrielle’s daughter Credit: Getty
She looked worlds away from the little girl who first appeared on Desperate Housewives back in 2008.
Madison De La Garza made her debut in the first episode of season five as the daughter of Gabrielle (Eva Longoria) and Carlos Solis (Ricardo Chavira).
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The TV star began playing Juanita at age six and she quickly became the centre of a “fat-shaming” storyline.
Fast forward 18 years, and Madison is now 24 and looking happier than ever after struggling with her body image and an eating disorder.
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In her most recent pictures, she looked gorgeous in casual clothes as she ditched the spotlight.
Madison spoke out on her time on Desperate Housewives and said her “first memories of trying to starve myself” were at 7-years-old.
She recalled the “shocking” reaction to her character, Junita, and confessed she felt “judged.”
“A lot of people came at it in a way that they were ‘concerned’ for my health. And I personally believe that that’s just not true, that it was a cover-up so that they could just judge a 6 year old,” said Madison.
The former actress has a very famous sister – singer Demi Lovato (Left) Credit: Getty
Madison now opts to stay out of the spotlight despite her Hollywood ties Credit: Instagram/@maddelagarza
She explained how she was not allowed on the computer without supervision but she would often do so sneakily to read comments about herself.
Madison continued: ” It affected my mental health and ultimately played into me developing an eating disorder at a very young age.
“I would just spend a crazy amount of time reading through these [online] comments and most all of them were just atrocious.
“I mean, they said things like they wanted me to die because of what I looked like. I mean, it was just horrible. I mean, ‘Ugly fat cow’ and ‘I hope you get cancer and die because you’re so fat.’
“Just horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible things. And this is when I was 6, 7, 8 years old.”
Madison admitted her mum had no idea that she was battling an eating disorder because she had gotten so “good at hiding” it.
She added: “I was very good at hiding and throwing away meals, then saying that I ate them.
“A lot of this happened while I was at school so there was no way for my parents to know that I was restricting.”
Madison confessed that the cast of the show were very lovely to her calling her “beautiful” and “very pretty.”
She said they never mentioned the comments and how the storyline made her the punchline, but deeply appreciated their efforts to build up her self-esteem.
“The whole joke of my character was that Eva was this thin, beautiful model and her daughter turned out to be quite the opposite. And so I think she was very aware that this was going to affect me,” Madison said.
“There was one episode where I went to school with a bunch of makeup on because girls in my class said that I wasn’t pretty enough to be her daughter. So this was talked about literally in the script of the show.”
While Madison no longer wants to pursue acting, she’s still linked to Hollywood as she has a very famous sister – Cool For The Summer singer Demi Lovato.
The pair share the same mum former country singer and Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader Dianna De La Garza.
