Chloë Grace Moretz Opens Up About How Becoming A Meme Crippled Her Life And Caused Body Dysmorphia: 'I Became A Recluse'

When she was 18 years old, Chloë Grace Moretz was one of the most promising faces of the Hollywood to come.

Her name began to rise when the actress, at just 12 years old, landed the role of Hit Girl in the superhero movie

That same year she starred in the US version of the Swedish romantic horror film

, which tells the love story between a misfit boy and a strange girl, who turns out to be a vampire.

With two blockbusters behind her, Chloë Grace Moretz was showered with projects: she starred in the

of the horror film

and participated in

Directed by Tim Burton.

Between project and project, the interpreter went from a child to a teenager and her personal life also began to receive interest: the actress was dating Brooklyn Beckham, son of David and Victoria Beckham.

And the paparazzi did not stop harassing her.

“I was just a girl and most of the time nobody bothered me”, the actress has now revealed in an interview for

, “but after

, I saw the paparazzi for the first time;

There were 10 or 15 adults surrounding a 12-year-old girl, they pushed my mother and she ended up on the ground, she didn't get hurt, but the situation was really chaotic.

It is an assault on all the senses, with screams and flashes.

When I got in the car, I started to cry.

I think that moment was a before and after for me”.

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Chloë Grace Moretz, the actress who speaks as she thinks

Photographers and the media grew fiercer with the actress as she turned years, and though Moretz was used to the paparazzi by now, she was unprepared for the criticism: “I remember the day I found out, and it hit me like a ton of bricks.

She was 18 years old and she was on a red carpet.

I walked out of there and felt a lot of self-hatred.

I was confused about my own feelings.

There was a complete and jarring shift in my consciousness, I questioned who I was.

'What am I doing?

Who I am?

Why am I doing this?” she explains in the interview.

And then came the meme: One day in 2016, Chloë Grace Moretz was photographed walking into a hotel carrying two pizza boxes.

She wore an ensemble consisting of a black top, shorts, and heels.

Her photograph was edited on the internet, where she had her legs lengthened and her abdomen reduced in size.

The retouched image was reminiscent of a scene from the animated series

, where Peter Griffin boasts of having very long legs.

What was apparently an internet joke became a torment for the actress: “For a long time I was able to be the Chloë that people see and the Chloë that I am in private.

Suddenly, those two worlds collided and I felt very vulnerable.

And then came the avalanche of horrible memes that started being sent to me about my body.

In fact, I have never talked about this, but there was a meme that really affected me, ”explains the actress, referring to the

.

Moretz recalls expressing his disgust that everyone was publicly making fun of his body, and that people laughed at his complaints: “They told me, 'Shut up!

It's hilarious!'

I just remember sitting there and thinking, 'My body is being used as a joke and it's something I can't change about who I am, and it's being posted all over Instagram.'

To this day, when I see that meme, it's still hard for me."

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After that, the actress admits that she became a recluse, dedicating herself exclusively to her profession and avoiding the paparazzi by all means.

"It's sad, because she took away a part of me that she used to enjoy," she admits, referring to that part that also comes into play in her profession as an actress, such as grooming, dressing and going to red carpets.

"I think that body dysmorphia, which we all deal with in this society, is magnified by exposure on social media," she says now.

Moretz began to live away from the spotlight, and she felt anxiety when she saw some paparazzi appear around her: “she felt palpitations and hyperventilated”, she admits.

The pandemic gave him a break.

Masks, hats and sunglasses were great allies of celebrities, since they were less recognizable to the paparazzi.

However, she lost her father during confinement: “For me it was a time of introspection.

There were a lot of changes in a short period of time.

It was transformative for me."

Now, he has new projects on the table.

Actually, she has never stopped having them.

He admits in the interview that acting is "a kind of therapy" for her.

She continues to live with a low profile behind the scenes, especially since her breakup with Brooklyn Beckham.

After more than 20 years of career, she already knows what it is to be in the spotlight, and she does not want to be there again.

“To say that the last few years have been transformational is an understatement.

I am a completely different girl than I was before.

Now I feel like I'm a woman."

The actress turned 25 in 2022.