During the early 90’s, it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to find a hotter actress than Demi Moore. Moore put an insane amount of preparation into getting into shape for her roles, including the widely panned 1996 film Striptease, even though it was mentally and physically costly for the actress. Though she put the same effort into losing weight for her role in Striptease, it was Moore’s next movie, G.I. Jane, that completely changed her mindset and opened her eyes to her dangerous “obsessing” over her body.
Body Image Issues Drove Demi Moore To Extreme Measures
In her 2019 memoir Inside Out, Demi Moore went into grim detail about the exorbitant efforts she went through during the 80’s and 90’s to stay slim to play the array of sexy characters that made her an international sex symbol. “I didn’t feel like I could stop exercising,” she confessed in the book. Her brutal exercise routine included running and biking, as well as long hours in the gym.
Pressure to lose the baby weight after she had her daughter Rumer Willis, whom she shares with ex-husband Bruce Willis, in preparation for her role in A Few Good Men opposite Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson drove her to such extreme exercising that her breast milk dried up. She literally didn’t have enough fat in her body to feed her daughter, which “crushed” her, she admitted, but it didn’t lessen her determination to stay slim no matter what.
In addition to all that exercising, Moore committed to a severe diet, which only got more extreme as she prepared for Striptease, where she played a stripper and actually performed strip routines for the film. “When I was making Striptease, for breakfast I would measure out a half cup of oatmeal and prepare it with water, then for the rest of the day I would have only protein and some vegetables — and that was it,” she wrote.
Moore Also Made The Strip Club Rounds
Of course, that wasn’t the only preparation Moore did for the film. “I went to Club Tier in New York, I’ve been to clubs in Florida and Los Angeles and various places,” Moore explained in a 1996 interview. “You know, on my path of enlightenment of the stripping world.” Eventually, the more physical side of her preparations began to get to Moore.
It wasn’t until she was cast in G.I. Jane that Moore began to seriously reconsider her extreme “obsessing” over her body.
“My usual reaction would have been to start starving myself again, to begin an exercise regime designed to reduce the bulk, but I did neither,” recalled Moore. “I had reached my limit,” she added. “When I got home to Idaho, I had an epiphany in the shower one day: I just need to be my natural size.” In her book, Moore acknowledged that her body obsession might “sound crazy,” but added, “eating disorders are crazy, they are a sickness. But that doesn’t make them less real.” Now the room that used to house Moore’s exercise equipment serves as her home office, a physical symbol of Moore’s commitment to a healthier mindset when it comes to her body.