‘America’s Got Talent’ Alum Jackie Evancho Opens up About Her Eating Disorder

America’s Got Talent superstar Jackie Evancho is opening up about the darker side of child stardom.

In a new interview with Access Tuesday, the singer, now 18, discussed her struggle with an eating disorder over the years.

“I’m just a perfectionist at heart and that includes myself and what I see I am. I want it to be perfect to me and unfortunately I can’t do that. But I do think that growing up in the spotlight, being a kid, being surrounded by all of these adult women who are beautiful and slender and tall was really difficult for me because I wanted to be that and I wasn’t,” she explained.

At the age of 10, the musician was named the runner-up on Season 5 of America’s Got Talent in 2010, and she is now competing on America’s Got Talent: The Champions.

“And then I started to hit puberty and I got my womanly curves and everything. It was just, for lack of a better word, triggering. It was really difficult for me to accept,” she continued. “I think that my body was changing in a way that I was hoping wouldn’t happen.”

Evancho always wanted to grow up, but “when it started to actually happen, it wasn’t happening in the way I had envisioned it,” she admitted.

“And me being a perfectionist, I was trying to — as the process is occurring — switch things around and tweak it so that it would happen that way. And as a result, I ended up developing issues from it — just trying to control everything,” Evancho continued.

Evancho’s parents were unaware of what she was going through, she admitted. “There was a lot of hiding, a lot of sitting in my room alone and just thinking and thinking and just crying because there’s all these thoughts that I have and me being so closed off, I don’t want to share it with people. And I want to seem like that strong role model,” she said. “I want to be perfect.”

“There wasn’t a day that went by where it wasn’t in my head. Anytime I saw my reflection, not only was it distorted, but I was sitting there telling myself: ‘That’s disgusting,’” the reality personality explained.

Eventually, Evancho’s family did learn what was going on with her, and she was able to get treatment.

“What got my parents to notice was me skipping dinners as well as everything else and going days without eating. That’s when they noticed and they were like, ‘You have no choice. You need to get help.’ So they kind of gave me that push. Of course I have to say, ‘I’m going to do this,’ but I said I was going to go through treatment for them and ultimately it helped me,” she said.

America’s Got Talent airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET on NBC.

Photo credit: Instagram/Jackie Evancho