Nicole Richie, whose rail-thin frame has been a source of much discussion in
the media, is now joining the chorus of voices saying that she is too skinny.
"I know I'm too thin right now, so I wouldn't want any young girl looking at
me and saying, 'That's what I want to look like,' " Richie tells Vanity Fair in
its June issue. "I do know that they will, which is another reason I really do
need to do something about it. I'm not happy with the way I look right now."
Richie blames her severe weight loss on, in part, her December breakup with
then-fiancé Adam "DJ AM" Goldstein. "I get really stressed out, and I do lose my
appetite," she says. (She and AM have been spotted together again recently.)
In an effort to put on a few pounds, Richie says she forced herself to eat –
particularly high-calorie foods like burritos – but eventually sought
professional help. "I started seeing a nutritionist and a doctor. I was scared
that it could be something more serious."
She is also working with a psychiatrist and a personal trainer. Her medical
team characterizes Richie's weight as "in the realm of anorexia," the magazine
reports. However, Dr. Jeffery Wilkins, vice-chair of the department of
psychiatry at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, points out, "Our
evaluation could change at any time."
Wilkins adds, "We're all concerned, and she's concerned, but it's either
going to improve or it won't. If it's not anorexia, she should be able to gain
the weight. If it ends up being anorexia, we'll help her with that. I think
she's willing to look this in the eye."
Ultimately, Richie says her restless childhood, the divorce of her adoptive
parents, Lionel and Brenda Richie, plus an adolescence spent partying and
fighting drug addiction all contributed to her trouble with her weight.
"I want to be able to take whatever comes to me and not physically break down
every time hard things come my way, because hard things are always going to come
my way," she says. "I'm really trying to make it so I have the proper tools to
deal with life."
Richie, who is working on her first album and a follow-up to her novel The
Truth About Diamonds, also sheds some light on the dissolution of her friendship
with her Simple Life costar Paris Hilton: "We never had a fight. I just decided
I didn’t want to be her friend anymore."
Although she's considered a style icon and media
darling, Richie says she's still trying to figure things out for herself. "Part
of the reason I don't really talk about being sober is that I don't want to feel
the pressure of being a role model," she says. "I am learning so much about
myself that for me to tell other people what to do in their lives is something
I'm not really fit to do. I'm a work in progress. I'm not 'there' yet. I don't
know if I'll ever be 'there.' "