'Desperate Housewives' child star reveals cyberbullying about weight led her to starve herself at 7 years old

foxnews.com:

"Desperate Housewives" star Madison De La Garza admitted that the cyberbullying she received while starring on the drama led her to "starve" herself.

De La Garza, who portrayed Eva Longoria's daughter, Juanita Solis, in the series, revealed she developed an eating disorder at 7 years old due to the "horrible" things said about her online. "The reactions that I got to my character on ‘Desperate Housewives,’ I mean, it was just shocking.

A lot of people came at it in a way that they were quote-unquote concerned for my health," she said during an appearance on the "Heart of the Matter" podcast with Elizabeth Vargas. "I personally believe that that’s just not true, that it was a cover-up so that they could just judge a 6-year-old." De La Garza's parents attempted to restrict her time on the computer, but the young actress would sneak online and "spend a crazy amount of time" reading "horrible" comments about herself. "They said things like they wanted me to die because of what I looked [like].

It was just horrible, like, ‘Ugly fat cow’ and ‘I hope you get cancer and die because you’re so fat.’ Just horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible things, and this was when I was 6, 7, 8 years old," she said. "Reading comments like that definitely affected my mental health and ultimately played into me developing an eating disorder at a very young age." In one episode of "Desperate Housewives," De La Garza's character asks Longoria – who portrayed Gabrielle Solis – if she could wear makeup to school because another child had said the young girl wasn't pretty enough to be Solis' daughter.