Jonathan Ross’ daughter Honey was trolled for her weight when she was 12 years old.
The 23-year-old activist grew up in the spotlight of her famous parents, but after reading a few nasty comments about her weight online, she began obsessing with her body size and asked to go on a diet.
She told The Sun newspaper: "Because of my parents, I got to go to red carpet events. It was so exciting. I’d get to put on a silly outfit and have a great time. People have always called us weird, this quirky, strange Addams family, and when you’re out and dressed up and with your family, you’re a united front. You’ve got people who are supporting you.
"You’re a teenager and those are formative years. You’re so insecure already. You get a real insight into a dark side of human nature. This is a world in which people don’t care if you are a kid. That’s when I started to realise my body wasn’t one that was massively desired by society. I was a kid – I was a half-baked human being, and I had all my worst fears about how people thought I was hideous written down."
Honey eventually told her parents about the trolls, but the negative comments had already taken an effect on her and she asked to restrict her diet.
She explained: "I think people would very much like to spin it that my parents were forcing me to do a diet. Of course they weren’t. I hated myself. I hated my body.
"I remember saying, ‘I’m miserable. Can I go on a diet?’ And they facilitated that. I could see that it broke their hearts to see their daughter so full of self-loathing. So they said, ‘If that’s what you really want to do, we’ll support that’."
But even as she lost weight, Honey still hated her body and eventually decided to learn to love her look no matter her size.
She added: "All of my friends would be 5ft 2, size-six brunettes and I was 5ft 8, bright ginger hair, size 16. I would have my tiny friends saying, ‘I feel so fat and disgusting today’. Me – standing there, actually fat. What does that make me? I’d stand there thinking, ‘Oh my God, this is brutal.’ "