20 Male Celebs Share Body Image Issues

Will Poulter who was in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 shared everything that he had to go through to prepare for the role.

"It’s been a lot of gym work and a very, very specific diet. Not particularly civilized at times. Quantities of food you wouldn’t necessarily want to ingest. And other times not enough food. I’ve gone through a series of different diets over the last few months.”

He further added that he wanted to be transparent about how difficult the process was,

"There’s a lot of pressure out there on young people, both men and women, regarding body image. If you’re going to promote the process by which you achieved said body goal, I think you have to be fully transparent about how you got there."

Taylor Lautner shared his struggles with being a teen heartthrob in his Twilight years.

He said that being shirtless that often changed his view of himself, "When I was in it, when I was 16 through 20 years old, starring in this franchise where my character is known for taking his shirt off every other second, no, I did not know that it was affecting me or going to affect me in the future with body image. But now looking back at it, of course, it did, and of course it is going to."

"That wasn’t my natural body. I had to work very hard for it and very, very hard just to maintain it."

He added,

"Don't find happiness in what you want your body to look like. Don't think just because you lose the 20 pounds or put on the muscle, you're going to wake up, look in the mirror and all of a sudden be happy. That's not where you should be finding value,"

After being trolled online for aging 'poorly', he said “I’m just so thankful that I’m in the place I am today where I can see that – and I’m not gonna lie, I’m not gonna say it doesn’t bug me. I wouldn’t be on here posting this video if it didn’t bother me at all. But it doesn’t make me question who I am and it doesn’t take anything away from me.”

Even the Rock isn't immune to the pressures Hollywood puts on actors to have the perfect body.

He said it came with the territory. "You can't be big, you can't go to the gym, you can't call yourself 'The Rock,' let's not talk about pro-wrestling. Well, you buy into that shit, as I did."

"One of two things is gonna happen. You're either gonna continue to go down that road, that path, and you're gonna be miserable. And eventually, your career is probably gonna fizzle out. You're not gonna have any sense of longevity or quality to it. Or the other thing that's gonna happen, you're gonna say 'Fuck this shit. I'm gonna be me and we're gonna see what happens.'"

Zac Efron who went through jaw reconstruction surgery after an accident shared his experiences as well.

He said he dreamt of not having to conform to rules anymore. "At one point, that was a dream of mine — what it would be like to not have to be in shape all the time. What if I just say, 'Fuck it' and let myself go? So I tried it, and I was successful. And for all the reasons I thought it would be incredible, I was just miserable. My body would not feel healthy; I just didn’t feel alive. I felt bogged down and slow."

When he did have to follow a regime for Baywatch however, he revealed how difficult it was, "There’s just too little water in the skin...And that required Lasix, powerful diuretics, to achieve. So I don’t need to do that. I much prefer to have an extra, you know, 2 to 3 percent body fat."

"I started to develop insomnia, and I fell into a pretty bad depression, for a long time. Something about that experience burned me out. I had a really hard time recentering. Ultimately they chalked it up to taking way too many diuretics for way too long, and it messed something up."

Sam Claflin of 'Daisy Jones and The Six' had a similar experience.

"I remember doing one job when they literally made me pull my shirt up and were grabbing my fat and going, 'You need to lose a bit of weight.' This other time they were slapping me. I felt like a piece of meat."

He added, "I'm not saying it's anywhere near as bad as what women go through but I, as an actor approaching each job, am insecure – especially when I have to take my top off in it – and so nervous. I get really worked up to the point where I spend hours and hours in the gym and not eating for weeks to achieve what I think they're going for."

John Boyega hopes to change things around with his own production company.

"Why do leads always have to be muscular and ripped? That kind of sometimes shows to me that the guy has too much time on his hands. What real war hero of history? Do you know what I mean? It's about rebranding the way in which we are fed a false narrative of perfection.”

Richard Madden of Game of Thrones fame said that it wasn't only women that faced this problem.

"I've done numerous jobs where you're told to lose weight and get to the gym. It doesn't just happen to women, it happens to men all the time as well.

Justin Baldoni said that filming shirtless had become a part of his "identity".

He struggled with being pigeonholed into that. "I’d always felt like I had so much more to offer, but that was how I was seen, and that was also how I was making my money."

"Because I have my insecurities with my physique, because of my history, I’d put a lot of pressure on myself before I had to do these scenes. So I would get anxiety around it."

When filming the last season of Jane the Virgin he said,

"This last season, I really didn’t get to work out that much. ... I don't think I personally looked as good as I did in previous seasons, but I think emotionally and mentally, I was a lot happier."

Simu Liu said his feelings fluctuate when it comes to his physique.

"I have days where I really feel sexy and on top of the world, and I have days where I don’t. But more than everything, I can be at peace with who I am as a whole — my charisma, my humor, my soul. ... What started to click for me is that I wasn’t chosen because of my looks or my martial arts ability or anything other than my ability to inhabit a character."

Jacob Elordi who rose to fame in young adult romances said that he learned quickly how important aesthetics were.

"You learn quickly that what people take away from those movies is your stature and your figure."

"You have all sorts of aged people around the world only talking about what you look like...I don’t think it’s really a conversation that people have in regard to men. It doesn’t keep me up at night, but it’s definitely frustrating."

He added, "You’ll go to a shoot and you’ll be getting changed or something and someone’s like, ‘Oooaaah, would you look?’ Can you imagine if I said to a woman, ‘Daaaaamn, look at your waist!’? Like, see you later. I would never do that, but I think people see it on their screens, so they think it’s okay.”

Eminem whose voice should be the main focus also struggled with his body image.

“I would get up in the morning, and before I went to the studio, I would run eight and a half miles in about an hour. Then I’d come home and run another eight and a half. I ran to the point where I started getting injured. All the constant pounding from the running began to tear up my hip flexors.”

Jacob Batalon said that he was afraid of working out since he was typecast as the funny friend and losing weight would affect those roles

He said he felt he was, "not a leading man type."

He added, "I feel like I was working hard consistently and all that stuff, but work got in the way."

Pattinson said he struggled with general anxiety and body dysmorphia was a large part of it.

“I do a lot of panicking [about] well, anything, really. Body dysmorphia, overall tremendous anxiety.”

He said, “I suppose it’s because of these tremendous insecurities that I never found a way to become egotistical. I don’t have a six-pack and I hate going to the gym. I’ve been like that my whole life. I never want to take my shirt off.”

Zayn Malik said he suffered from an eating disorder while he was part of One Direction

“Something I’ve never talked about in public before, but which I have come to terms with since leaving the band, is that I was suffering from an eating disorder.”

"The workload and the pace of life on the road put together with the pressures and strains of everything going on within the band had badly affected my eating habits.

"It wasn’t as though I had any concerns about my weight or anything like that. I’d just go for days – sometimes two or three days straight – without eating anything at all.”

“I didn’t feel like I had control over anything else in my life, but food was something I could control, so I did.”

Ed Sheeran too opened up about his eating disorder.

He compared his experience to that of Elton John, “I found myself doing what Elton explains in his book – gorging, and then it would come up again.”

It was his pregnant wife that pulled him out of the cycle, “Cherry said, ‘If my waters break do you really want someone else to drive me to the hospital? And that’s when it clicked. I was like, ‘No, actually, I really don’t.”

Elton John revealed his struggles with Bulimia in his book.

He said that he and Princess Diana would support each other through their Bulimia.

“We were both bulimic. I was also a bulimic. We exchanged letters about things like that.”

He further added, “I am a survivor. I’ve survived a lot of things. Life is full of pitfalls, even when you’re sober. I can deal with them now because I don’t have to run away and hide.”

Russell Brand too suffered from Bulimia in his teen years.

He said, “I’ve always had problems with body image. A bit bulimic as a teenager, I used to make myself be sick and stuff like that.”

“The problem becomes when you don’t address what your wanting wants. I suppose what I have to let go of is the idea of the archetype of a perfect body.”

Jason Momoa who is known for his muscles was criticised when images of him having a slight belly were shared online.

Instead of being upset at the body-shaming, he took the high road saying he wasn't hurt by the comments. "Not at all...Tell TMZ I'll show you my dad bod soon."

Wentworth Miller refused to play along and decided to take up a healthier perspective.

"In 2010, at the lowest point in my adult life, I was looking everywhere for relief/comfort/distraction. And I turned to food...And I put on weight. Big f—ing deal."

Channing Tatum shared that he never wanted to do another edition of 'Magic Mike XXL' again.

"That might be the reason why I didn't want to do a third one, is I have to look like that."

He added, "I don't know how people that work a 9–5 actually stay in shape, because it's my full-time job and I can barely do it...It takes two months to get really lean, but in three days you can lose it."