Lili Reinhart is practicing what she preaches – to inspire others.
The Riverdale star is a huge advocate of body positivity – and has been open about her struggles on the matter. And, like many of us, she also has days when she’s not feeling 100% about herself – or her body. However, she’s not letting those days keep her from trying to inspire others.
She recently opened up about doing a risqué scene on the show – one where she had to strip down to her bra and underwear, despite feeling “really insecure” about her body.
“I don’t have the CW girl body — tiny waist, nice-shaped legs, skinny, small, tiny,” Lili told the Los Angeles Times. “I had to do a bra and underwear scene in this last season and I felt really insecure about it. I really, really didn’t want to do it. I didn’t tell anyone this. I wasn’t pressured into doing it. I did it because it was my job.”
“But I felt bad about myself doing it. I really did,” she continued. “And this is where it gets complicated. I can’t preach body positivity if I don’t practice it. So even if I’m not feeling amazing about my body, I felt it was important for me to do the scene anyway in my bra and underwear so people could see my body as it was. I did it for the people who feel like they need to look a certain way.”
And she hopes that people who watch the scene would spark confidence and help do away with unrealistic body expectations.
“You go on Instagram, and I’m like, ‘Oh, look, all these people with these beautifully toned bodies’ and then go to the beach — does anyone on the beach in the real world look like that? I don’t see anyone looking like this,” she says. “Instagram and Victoria’s Secret runways are not a portrayal of how people look in real life.”
Lili has previously opened up about her own body image and mental health struggles in a powerful speech she made during the 2018 Glamour Women of the Year Summit.
“I understand how it seems inappropriate for someone who is average size to talk about problems with weight gain. But, my point is, I didn’t think anything was wrong with my body until I was in an industry that rewards and praises people for having a smaller waist than I will ever have,” she said at the time. “It felt unfair to think that I would never have an industry-perfect body, just because I wasn’t genetically built a certain way. I was exposed to young women, smaller than I was, telling me that they needed to lose weight.”
“From a young age we are unknowingly being trained by magazines, marketing, and all forms of media into thinking that having cellulite or not wearing makeup is worthy of being publicly shamed,” she later she later continued. “So there was no way in hell that as young women digesting this media, we weren’t all going to try and hide those parts of ourselves from then on. We aren’t born with these insecurities. We are told to be insecure about certain things. We are conditioned to feel ashamed or embarrassed about certain parts of ourselves.”
“Remind yourself that this perfect world you see online, in magazines, in movies and TV, are presented to you through many different filters. So do not set impossible goals of meeting those fake standards,” she added. “It’s unrealistic to think that your body or my body will ever look like anyone else’s. That’s not the way it’s supposed to be. We are all imperfectly beautiful, so let’s embrace that. And practice that in a healthy way.”
