Being on The Sopranos as a young girl had a profound impact on the way Jamie Lynn Sigler viewed herself.
“What I saw disturbed me. I didn’t look like any young girl on TV,” Sigler, 44, wrote in her new book, And So It Is…: A Memoir of Acceptance and Hope. “No one on Dawson’s Creek was as big as I was or had a nose like mine.”
She continued, “Honestly, I’d never liked my nose, but it didn’t bother me that much until I saw my face on a big screen. It’s like I took up the whole screen with my ugliness.”
In the memoir — which was published on Tuesday, May 5 — Sigler explained that her body image struggles developed after she watched the first episode of The Sopranos. (Sigler played Meadow Soprano for all six seasons of the HBO show from 1999 to 2007.)
Sigler wrote that her “body dysmorphia went haywire” and she started taking extreme measures to lose weight. The actress recalled waking up to work out for two hours every morning. Ultimately, she dropped down to 88 pounds, and her body started rejecting food.
“Once, after eating cereal, I threw up, and my dad caught it in his hands. My easygoing, look-on-the-bright-side dreamer of a dad was overwhelmed. He started to cry,” she recalled. “He picked me up and carried me to my room like he used to when I was a child, begging me to stop.”
At the time, Sigler was also offered the opportunity to “help with the way your nose protrudes downward.”
She fell while on a run, which led to a scar on her face. Instead of covering it with makeup, the actress went to a plastic surgeon and scheduled a nose job. Sigler wrote that it’s a decision she regrets to this day.
“If I could go back in time, I would change my next decision. I would look at my perfect, God-designed face and tell that tortured teen to walk away,” she wrote. “But I wasn’t there to guide her. Instead, I made the appointment. When I emerged from surgery, the nose job wasn’t subtle. I knew I was f***ed.”
After the surgery, Sigler lost even “more weight” and had a totally different nose.
“My mom, always wanting to comfort me, assured me that it would all be OK, but I knew better,” she recalled. “I tabled my fears, covering it all up the best I could, and just focused on getting my health back.”
If you or someone you know struggles with an eating disorder, visit the National Alliance for Eating Disorders website or call their hotline at (866) 662-1235. Text “ALLIANCE” to 741741 for free, 24/7 support.
And So It Is…: A Memoir of Acceptance and Hope is out now. For more from Sigler, pick up the latest issue of Us Weekly.
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