Jackie Evancho Opens Up About Eating Disorder and Mental Health Battle

Jackie Evancho is speaking out about her struggles with mental health. The 23-year-old singer took to Instagram Monday to share that her desire to be perfect led her to develop an eating disorder and anxiety amongst other things.

"Growing up being told that in order to do the thing you love most, it must be perfection, you must look perfect, sound perfect, behave perfectly as a 10-year-old child, is a challenge. Big challenge," Evancho shared. "And it's created these deep pressures in me that I place on myself to this very day."

She added, "And I kind of believe it is partly causing my disordered eating, my anxieties and all those other things on the list."

Despite that, Evancho, who has been facing the pressures of the music industry since she was just a kid promised to "face it," and did so in part by posting a song that she wrote last year that is the exact opposite of what she was preached to be: imperfect.

Titled 'Get Out of My Life', Evancho said the track was recorded in the middle of the night using headphone microphones and an iPad, and while she sometimes sees herself as her harshest critic, she's learning that she doesn't need everybody to like her or what she sounds like.

"As I've gotten older I've realized I don't need everybody's approval," Evancho said. "I don't need everybody to like me or what I sound like."

"Recently I’ve discovered something that I had all along.. my voice. I want to take my power back, be bold when facing my past demons, and share what I learn through my music. Being imperfect is perfectly ok, and that’s exactly how this song came to be. Enjoy," she captioned the post.

The America's Got Talent contestant has previously spoken about her lifelong battle with anorexia in a July 2022 interview with People.

The singer revealed that her anorexia came to a head when she was hospitalized after a car accident in January 2021 that left her back broken in two places. "They were abnormal breaks, breaks that you see in 80-year-olds," Evancho told the magazine. "That's how I learned that my eating problems created osteoporosis. So now I'm a 22-year-old with osteoporosis."

The "A Case of You" singer explained that she checked in to an inpatient facility in October to combat her anorexia and attempt to heal her injuries from the car accident. "I had to eat [for my bones] to heal, and that really messed me up with my eating problems, because I was gaining weight to heal," Evancho said. "Once I finally healed, my disorder said, 'OK, now you've got to be really hard on yourself to get all of that out of you... and then some.'"

Calling it a "dark and painful" time, Evancho said she would not let her illness stand in the way of her music career.

"Since I was a kid I've put so much blood, sweat and tears into my career, and to see that sort of fade away because of this demon in my head?" Evancho said. "No, I'm going to fight this now because you can't take this one thing from me."