mizChartreuse || redefiningSuccess

Brittany Murphy, a beloved Hollywood actress, died this morning of full cardiac arrest at the age of 32.

Brittany Murphy was also an inspiration to me at one point–but probably not in the way you’d initially think.

Clueless was a staple of my childhood. Cute, innocent girls livin’ the dream in Cali. When we were younger, Allie and I would have sleepovers in her basement, watching Clueless over and over again (no joke), pretending we were Cher and Dionne.

When I went away to college at Northern Illinois University in 2003, I lived in the dorms and subsisted on my weekly resident meal plan. This meant my diet was 90% mozzarella sticks and chicken fingers with barbecue sauce. I’d always been quite thin as a child, especially due to taking dance classes and being on the diving, gymnastics and soccer teams at Palatine High School. But once I hit NIU, I went beyond gaining the dreaded Freshman 15 and probably put on about 30 pounds, as horrid as it may sound.

I was big and I was lazy.

Then one weekend evening, my roommates put on Clueless and it brought back many childhood memories. I watched Brittany’s cute character, Tai, on the screen, adoring her own type of cluelessness. And then I realized, what with the then-recent release of the Just Married movie: Brittany Murphy used to be plump. And now she’s super skinny and looks good. If SHE can go from this to THAT, so can I!

This.

THAT.

And without finishing the movie, I immediately climbed off my top bunk, put on some tight-fitting, curve-hugging sweatpants, and headed to the gym across the street from Douglas, which was my dorm building. I hadn’t worked out a day since I’d arrived on campus, but watching chubby Brittany on the screen made me want to get my butt in gear.

With the news of Brittany’s death this morning, speculations abound on the Interwebs–what happened to this young, pretty girl? Too many eightballs of coke? Anorexia? I also heard she was diabetic; perhaps the heart attack was caused by that. Surely, time will tell when we hear the official reports of the cause of death, but my guess is it could be a combination of all of the above.

Murphy had been accused of having an eating disorder a few years ago, and probably rightfully so. The way she was looking at the time, it was hard not to wonder.

As talks became more and more heated, she gave an official statement saying she was not ill. But other than Mary Kate (or was it Ashley?) Olsen, celebrities don’t often admit to suffering from eating disorders. Not only are there severe stigmas attached to anorexia and bulimia, but the struggles are very personal and stem from deep-seeded beliefs.

Hollywood puts a lot of pressure on young starlets to fit a certain image, but it obviously goes beyond celebrity culture. The vast majority of us women have struggled with some sort of eating disorder in their lives, whether we choose to admit it or not. Many women, by their very nature, are obsessed with looking good. And sometimes, it goes beyond just wanting to be hot and travels into dangerous territory, disregarding being healthy.

In regard to the difference between Clueless Brittany and, say, 8-Mile Brittany, there is also the option that perhaps Brittany just grew out of her “baby fat” stage. When I was 18-20-ish my face was definitely rounder and fuller than it is now; often women’s faces become more thin and defined with age.

But my guess is still that drugs played a part in her life over the last couple years. She was certainly a SKINNY MINNIE. Even in Little Black Book, an incredibly cute movie, she struck me as quite thin.

Either way, I’m simply thankful that on that day when I decided to DO something about my rapid weight gain, I decided to work out and stop with the cheese sticks, rather than resorting to snorting lines and starving myself.

May Brittany Murphy, my one-time inspiration, rest in peace.