Emmerdale actress Gemma Oaten has open up about suffering from an eating disorder for the same reason as Victoria Beckham. 

The soap opera actress, 41, known for her role as Rachel Breckle from 2011 to 2015, battled anorexia for 13 years and previously disclosed she was admitted to a psychiatric unit at just 11 years old.

Now, Gemma has shared her thoughts after Spice Girl Victoria’s candid admission about her own eating disorder in her new docuseries.

In the Netflix documentary about Victoria Beckham, the fashion icon shared her struggles with an eating disorder, which stemmed from being bullied and body shamed.

Gemma, speaking to The Mirror, revealed that bullying was the catalyst for her anorexia, leading to 21 hospitalizations during her teenage years.

“My eating disorder was fueled by bullying,” Gemma explained. “I couldn’t control what others said, but I felt like I could control my weight.”

Emmerdale actress Gemma Oaten has open up about suffering from an eating disorder for the same reason as Victoria Beckham (Seen in 2023)

In the Netflix documentary, Victoria Beckham discussed her struggles with an eating disorder due to being bullied and body shamed.

She continued, “Ironically, it’s heartbreaking that these were strong, ambitious women who many young girls, myself included, admired. Yet, it’s sad to learn that figures like Mel C, Geri, and now Victoria Beckham also faced these challenges.”

It comes after Victoria revealed for the first time in her docuseries that she had lived with an eating disorder, which started when she was at theatre school when she was a teenager but she was dishonest about even to her beloved parents Tony and Jackie.

Speaking on the three part series, Victoria says: ‘I really started to doubt myself and not like myself and because I let it affect me, I didn’t know what I saw when I looked in the mirror.

‘Was I fat? Was I thin? I don’t know, you lose all sense of reality. I was just very critical of myself. I didn’t like what I saw. I have been everything from porky posh to skinny posh, I mean, it’s been a lot and that’s hard.

‘I had no control over what was being written about me or the pictures that were being taken and I suppose I wanted to control that. I could control it with the clothing, I could control my weight. I was controlling my weight in an incredibly unhealthy way.

‘When you have an eating disorder you become very good at lying. And I was never honest about it with my parents. 

‘I never spoke about it publicly, it really affects you. When you’re told constantly you’re not good enough. And I suppose that’s been with me my whole life.’

Victoria, who catapulted to fame in the mid-90s with the Spice Girls, also recalls a moment when she was weighed by live on television by Chris Evans on his Channel 4 show TFI Friday to see if she had lost her baby weight just months after giving birth to her eldest son Brooklyn back in 1999.

The soap star, 41, who played Rachel Breckle from 2011 to 2015 (Pictured), suffered with anorexia for 13 years and previously revealed she ended up in a psychiatric unit when she was just 11-years-old

Speaking to The Mirror, Gemma has now revealed that it was bullying which also triggered her anorexia – which saw her hospitalised 21 times as a teenager (Seen in 2016)

While at the time she was all smiles, today she reveals the toll that it took on her as a 25-year-old new mum.

‘I was weighed on national television,’ says Victoria. ‘Get on those scales, have you lost the weight?’ we laugh about it and we joke about it but I was really, really young and that hurts.’

Victoria’s body confidence agony began when she was just a teenager and won a place at the Laine Theatre school in Epsom, Surrey – which she reveals her parents funded by remortgaging their house in Goffs Oak, Hertfordshire.

She tells how despite her hard work she wasn’t the best dancer, or indeed singer. But she also told how she looked different to her classmates.

‘I didn’t look like a lot of the other girls,’ she says. ‘That’s where I started getting a lot of criticism about my appearance, my weight.

‘I remember the principle of the theatre school saying to me, you know, at the end of the show we are going to just fly in. “You girls can be flown in” meaning that we weren’t looking as aesthetically pleasing as some of the others, ‘so we’ll just fly you in the back.’

Victoria’s mother Jackie also adds that the star was told ‘you’re overweight. You’ll be at the back.’

She added: ‘It must have affected her, it’s a very silly thing to say to someone, “You’re fat”.’

The documentary follows Victoria in the run up to her Paris Fashion Week show in September 2024 – the biggest catwalk occasion she had ever thrown. 

Viewers will see how the weather left her and the team at her label on tenterhooks as they feared they would have to postpone it.

But it also takes viewers on the former singer’s journey from a Spice Girl, to a WAG, right through to the present day as a fashion designer.