This story discusses mental health and food issues.
File this one under BIG MOODS.
Sophie Turner’s been using her Game Of Thrones final season press tour to get extremely real about how growing up in the spotlight as Sansa Stark affected her mental health.
It’s easy to see why, between the pressure of fame worsening the regular body-image issues that teenage girls tend to have, and the fan backlash about how Sansa was The Worst well before she was The Best.
And while her friendship with onscreen sister Maisie Williams is one of the best offscreen things about the whole Game Of Thrones situation, Turner says that it might not always have been the healthiest thing for either of them – mentally or physically.
“I think being friends with each other was quite destructive because we were going through the same thing,” she told Dr Phil on his Phil In The Blanks podcast, after opening up about her overall mental health struggles.
We would get home from set, go to a Tesco, a little supermarket across the road, and just buy food. We’d go back to our room and eat it in bed. We never socialised for a couple of years.”
Eating in bed is a time-honoured tradition for people battling with their mental health, alongside being in bed but not eating at all, only eating absolute garbage, and only ever eating at 3am standing in front of the fridge, biting shameful chunks out of a one-kilo block of cheese.
And it all sounds like a totally valid coping mechanism for having to film incredibly heavy storylines featuring a whole lot of violence and pain – but one Turner’s managed to get past with therapy and the help of her friends and fiancé Joe Jonas.
As much as it’s never nice to hear that your favourite stars were struggling while they made something you love, at least Turner and Williams had each other.
If this story has affected you in any way, you can call Lifeline on 13 11 14 for help.