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Katherine Heigl worked to success as an actress, and once she attained it, shelearned that being a public figure meant being under the scrutiny of others.
The Grey ‘s Anatomy alum tells Yahoo Life that she had started acting as an“after-school activity” when she was a young girl, not having any focus onturning it into a career. But as soon as she and her mother made the decisionto move to Los Angeles to see if Heigl could make it big-time—which she did,with other early stints including 2007’s Knocked Up and 2008’s 27 Dresses— she loses herself in the process.
“Being suddenly kind of defined by public opinion was very new. And it wasvery positive at first, so it felt really good … And then it turned,” sheexplains over the phone, referring to being labeled as difficult to work with,ungrateful and unprofessional earlier in her career — sentiments that themedia often highlighted. “I did feel very isolated in it, I really got in myhead.”
Heigl had struggled with “mental instability” before and calls herself a”people pleaser,” noting that she’s gone to great lengths to earn favor and inturn became resentful about it.
“ It was really hard for me to have public opinions sway so far the otherdirection, and I wasn’t grounded or stable in my own self enough to notbelieve them myself,” she reflects. “So I spent a lot of time in my early 30’sworried that maybe they were right and I was this kind of person. But thendefending myself, in my own mind, it’s like that horrible neuroses andanxiety.”
Under the spotlight and the negative headlines, she wishes she had built up askillset to protect her wellbeing.
Katherine Heigl at the 2008 Los Angeles premier of 27 Dresses. (Photo:ANDREAS BRANCH/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)
“It would have saved me a lot of eating the s*** out of myself. And maybe thatwould have been great and I could have gotten help sooner and I could havechanged it sooner,” she says, pondering what her experience would have beenlike if conversations of mental health had been more mainstream.”It’s, in myopinion, the worst thing I’ve been through as an adult, because I didn’tunderstand it. a moral or character weakness.”
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She continues, “I was at such an incredibly heightened level of anxiety, andso afraid of every move I made and everything I said and everything I did …trying to be the perfect person to not ruffle any feathers … And I was like”Oh my god, I can’t win. I can’t win.” And it was just the super lonely placebecause I let it mean so much to me.”
A piece of overcoming all of that — the unsavory headlines, the reputation andthe internalization of it — was simply getting older, Heigl says.
“I’m about to turn 44 and I’ve started looking back a bit, because you’ve gotenough to look back on. And I have a lot of regrets,” she says. “I getfrustrated with myself for not knowing better, and I didn’t know better. So Idon’t know how I could have made different choices, not having any betterunderstanding. But I wish I had known better, I guess, and that I had notspent so much time in this dark place of fear.”
She then quotes Maya Angelou saying, “Do the best you can until you knowbetter. Then when you know better, do better.” It’s something that Heigl’s momwould often remind her of — and something she keeps in mind in an effort toshow her younger self some grace. Eventually, the hardships pushed her to gainperspective.
“That kind of coming to was I guess born out of all that anxiety, all thatconfusion, all that inner turmoil of my early 30s,” she explains. “But I stillwish it hadn’t happened.”
A bigger piece of coming out on the other side was educating herself on mentalhealth, getting the proper help and ultimately being put on medication.
“It essentially saved my life,” she says.
Now, through her portrayal of Tully Hart, who is fiercely dedicated to herjob, on the Netflix series Firefly Lane , which resumes with part one ofseason two on Friday, Heigl is better able to reflect on the choices that shemade throughout her career, and how she took the opportunity to turn trivialmoments into triumphs throughout her life.
“I wouldn’t be who I am right now with the life I have right now if I hadn’tgone through a lot of that. The career stuff, the mental health stuff, theloneliness and isolation,” she says. “I wouldn’t have figured out how to takecare of myself and I can now.”
She also credits relocating to Utah to raise her children and connect withnature for being a vital piece in the process of reconnecting with herself.
“Moving up here was a big step towards separating myself from my publicpersona, and spending more time with my private persona than my publicpersona, so that I could differentiate better,” she explains. “My life is thebest it’s ever been and it has nothing to do with my career. Well, some of itdoes. But it has more to do with my ability to wake up in the morning and findjoy and gratitude in the things that really matter to me … I don’t know if Iwould have learned those lessons any other way.”
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