The series about the oppressed wives of Wisteria Street was very popular in previous years.
Fans of the series will no doubt remember the young actress, Madison De La Garza who played the role of Juanita Solis, the daughter of Gabby who was played by Eva Longoria.
Madison is a grown woman today, but she celebrated her 21st birthday in December. She has now opened up about her time as a child star, on the Heart of the Matter podcast, and revealed how negative online comments have affected her life.
There was massive cyberbullying that had serious consequences
Madison says she faced a lot of cyberbullying while on the show. Comments were discussed and discussed about her physical appearance, even though she was just a child.
She took these comments to heart and it led her to develop an eating disorder.
“It was comments like people want me to die just because of how I look.” It was awful, comments like ‘ugly big bras’ and ‘I hope you get cancer and die because you’re so fat’. Horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible comments and it happened when I was six, seven and eight.”
The family had no idea
Madison says those comments had a huge negative impact on her psyche and contributed to her developing an eating disorder at a very young age.
“My family had no idea what was going on. My mom didn’t know I was seeing this, reading these things because I was very low key about it. I don’t blame her. I mean, it was literally impossible not to see that.”
As fans may recall, Madison’s body image was also made into a plot point of the series, with repeated references to her being overweight.
“It was literally in the script for the show. The whole joke of the character I played was that Eva was a thin, golden model and her daughter turned out to be her opposite.”
Bring Eva the right story
When asked if the show’s producers were aware of the cyberbullying she had experienced, Madison replied:
“Yeah, I think if they knew that, at least they never came to tell me anything other than making sure to tell me I was beautiful and tell me I was cute that day there, or that the clothes I was wearing nice clothes and something like that. And the customers were very concerned about making me feel comfortable.”
However, Madison fondly remembers Eva Longoria, who played her mother on the show. She was good at praising Madison and treated her very well.
Madison says today she is in a better place and will soon celebrate two years of recovery from her eating disorder. She also decided to get sober 8 months ago.
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