On Monday night's episode of "Dancing With The Stars," Alexa PenaVega opened up for the first time about her childhood struggle with bulimia. Unfortunately, on the night she finally found the strength to share the most emotional years of her life with the world, and the night she got two perfect scores, she ended up going home. Even though she will no longer be able to inspire people through dancing, she still hopes her story is one people don't ever forget about.
Her six-year struggle with bulimia started when the former "Spy Kids" star was told by a movie producer that she was too fat. Now, at 27 years old, she has completely recovered, but it's something that will always emotionally stick with her, and she has "DWTS" to thank for the strength and confidence she found to share this story.
"This is something that I was so afraid to talk about before, but this show has given me so much confidence. I went through a big battle, and all I wanted to do was move and inspire people and show them that bulimia is something that you can get over," Alexa said following her elimination. "That's really all I wanted tonight. I couldn't have asked for a better way to end my time in the competition."
Suffering with an eating disorder at such a young age can really take a toll on you, especially when nobody truly understands what you're going through. "The one thing that I had always wanted was for someone to be real with me about the whole situation," PenaVega told People after Monday's show. "You read textbooks, and it's just so, well, textbook. 'This is how you get over bulimia.' But it is so much deeper than that. I wish I'd had somebody who could have told me, 'It's scary.' You struggle giving it up. You want to get rid of it, but you struggle because, in a strange way, you enjoy it."
"I never wanted people to associate me with this problem, and I feel like that's the biggest fear you have with trying to overcome that," she told Entertainment Tonight. "I don't want anybody to associate me with an eating disorder or bulimia in any way. So finally just being able to let it go and say, 'You know what, I know who I am and I've gotten past this and I'm proud of myself.' For me, I'm just like, 'Let the world know.' Because I wish I had somebody to be real with me who was just so open about it."
PenaVega's dancing partner Mark Ballas and her husband Carlos PenaVega were with her every step of the way on Monday while she shared her troubled past, and she could not be more thankful to have had these two men in her life during this moment.
"Tonight you were strong, bold, courageous, beautiful, passionate, vulnerable and most importantly CONFIDENT," Ballas captioned a photo of them. "I wish we could have taken it all the way to the end, but what a way to go out tonight with 60/60 and with a dance that can truly help people and inspire people. If we helped one person tonight mission accomplished. Tonight was biggest than dancing on a television show, tonight was about love, life, and helping people who are struggling and in need, to me that's bigger than any mirror ball or championship."
