Lili Reinhart Got Candid About The Toll Cystic Acne Takes On Her As An Actor

Back to tackling difficult topics, Lili Reinhart opened up once again about the challenges of dealing with cystic acne and body dysmorphia disorder, especially in her very visible profession. The Riverdale star was having a particularly rough day on Friday, Nov. 12, so she posted about it in her Instagram stories to help others who are in the same shoes.

“Having cystic acne sucks enough as it is, but having to be in front of a camera during a breakout makes me feel 100000x worse,” she wrote in her first story.

The actor went on to explain that her cystic breakouts date back to when she was 12 years old. Now 25, she still struggles with them and can find herself in a bad place at times. “It triggers a lot of old feelings of BDD (body dysmorphia disorder) and I want to crawl under a rock and hide,” she wrote. Elaborating, she noted that on her “worst days on set” — like on the day she posted — “something as stupid as a pimple can dictate” her feelings about herself.

Reinhart made it clear that she decided to post to help people who “deal with the same feelings … feel less alone.” After hopefully doing just that, she wrapped her stories up on a positive note and let her followers know that she’s “working on not letting it break [her] down.” She also sent “love and empathy to all those who struggle with acne.”

The Hustlers star previously detailed how cystic acne triggers BDD for her during a 2018 Seventeen interview. “I have cystic acne and sometimes when I have a breakout it triggers me back to that time when I was a teen and I feel so self-conscious — like the whole world is looking at my bad skin,” she told the magazine. “I’ve definitely not gone out of the house because of a breakout, which is horrible.”

Reinhart has also spoken frankly about other stigmatized topics, from anxiety and depression to other forms of body insecurity. Notably, she called out the film/TV industry in a Twitter thread last year for its “struggles with accurate representation of female and male bodies” and discussed how that affects her personally. The actor admitted that she sometimes feels “intimidated” by her cast mate’s physiques and that body image is something she struggles with “on a daily basis.”

“I’ve felt very insecure due to the expectation that people have for women on tv, what they should look like,” she wrote, in part, across multiple tweets. “But I have come to terms with my body and that I’m not the kind of person you would see walking on a runway during fashion week. ... And I want other young women to see my body on tv and feel comfort in the fact that I’m not a size 0. And I’m not a perfect hourglass shape.”

By sending out love and empathy on one of her harder days, she’ll hopefully get plenty right back.