In case the recently clusterbleep about Lady Gaga’s weight hadn’t tipped you off already, today’s lady singers feel an immense pressure to be thin. Probably even more so when they have to function as both a vocalist and a burlesque dancer, like former Pussycat Dolls‘ singer Nicole Scherzinger. In her upcoming Behind the Music special airing October 7, the “Don’t Cha” singer opens up about the disordered eating and self-harm that have accompanied her pop stardom. As you can imagine, it’s pretty brutal.

“It’s embarrassing. I never spoke about it. Like I said, I never want to play a victim, and I never wanted my family to hear about things from me because I think it would break their heart, you know,” Nicole reveals. “I guess it was like my addiction, right? I never did drugs, but kinda doing things to myself was my addiction. It’s like when I got off stage, I was on this high, and I’d come back to my room and I’d be alone, so I would just do things. My bulimia was my addiction; hurting myself was my addiction.” Ugh…we feel genuinely guilty for liking “Buttons” while Nicole was going through all this. We know that kind of random guilt doesn’t help anyone, but that’s just how we feel.

Having joined the Pussycat Dolls in 2003, Scherzinger’s battle with self-destructive compulsions apparently went on “everyday for, like, years. Every time I had a second to be alone, I was doing something to myself.” As Scherzinger admits now, “You get, like, blisters on your hands or scars on your hands, and I’d try to hide those. I think the girls could tell.” Oh god. Well, as hard as it must be, we give major kudos to Nicole for opening up about her struggle. It takes a strong woman to talk about it openly, let alone live through it.

[Photo: Getty Images]

Source: Nicole Scherzinger The Latest Pop Star To Break Our Hearts With Struggle With Bulimia, Self-Harm