Heather Morris is getting candid about developing an eating disorder during her time on Glee and what her late costar Naya Rivera did to try and help.
After spending much of her early career as a dancer, Morris said "an unhealthy work habit" began when she got cast on the show and felt as though she had to "people please." When the success of the Fox musical comedy led to a concert tour in 2010, things escalated.
"I had developed an eating disorder. I stopped getting my period. I was so in my head about food and what it was doing for me," she recalled on Thursday's episode of the And That's What You REALLY Missed podcast, hosted by former costars Jenna Ushkowitz and Kevin McHale.
While Morris did not specify her eating order, she said that she would look at the food being served to the cast while on tour and not eat — even in front of her costars.
According to Morris, Rivera followed her into her dressing room to confront her on one occasion.
"I can't remember exactly what she was saying, but she was approaching me about my eating disorder because I know she herself had eating disorders, and she was very open about it in her book. So she of course was the first to speak up about it," explained Morris.
While Morris admitted to realizing that Rivera had good intentions, she recalled blowing "it off," telling Rivera that she was okay, and never speaking about her eating disorder with her costar ever again.
"That's who she was. She was just always ready to talk about it," Morris said.
"To face things head on," added Ushkowitz, 36.
On Glee, Morris played the ditzy cheerleader Brittany S. Pierce who had many storylines with Rivera's character Santana Lopez after she confessed her romantic feelings in the 2011 episode "I Kissed a Girl."
Because of their time together, the two developed a close friendship that Morris touched on shortly after Rivera died at age 33 in July 2020.
"You constantly taught me lessons about grief, about beauty and poise, about being strong, resilient and about not giving a f— (but still somehow respectful)," she wrote in an Instagram tribute at the time. "Yet, the utmost important lesson I learned most of all from you was being a consistent and loving friend. You were the first to check in, the first to ask questions, the first to listen .. you cherished our friendship and I never took that for granted."
