I’m a recovering anorexic… and this is why I hope someone is helping frail and unwell Ariana Grande: LIZ JONES

It’s horrendous to be criticised for your appearance. I get it all the time. From a male reader, upon seeing a photo of me smiling next to Tracey Emin: ‘You no longer look like that.’ Maybe, but my teeth are much improved! A thread on Mumsnet: ‘Don’t mention her ears!’ A female friend: ‘You have lovely arms, but you should stop dyeing your hair.’ An ex colleague wrote: ‘Liz always did have a face like a spoon.’

Worst of all was the highly religious female writer in a snooty broadsheet who, below a photo of me taken at my then husband’s book launch, wrote: ‘The huge, staring eyes above a skeletal body, desperately trying to hang on to her man’s arm.’ Female writers are always the cruellest, and she wrote knowing little of what was happening behind closed doors: the emotional abuse, the cheating, the childhood anorexia that flares up at the first sign of trouble, the crippling self-doubt. Is it appropriate to comment about someone who has what is, let’s face it, a mental illness? I’m my own worst enemy so I certainly don’t need new ones. I was once asked by the Daily Mail to dress as Kate Middleton for the day. It was a bit of fun, as I have long, dark hair (ageing, apparently) and a handspan waist. I still chew over the vile comments in the middle of the night; the only things I do masticate, mostly.

But, and it’s a big but (which I obviously don’t have), it’s important we are allowed to talk about a woman’s body when her massive empire is based upon revenue from girls. I’m talking, of course, about Ariana Grande, who is stepping back from her career when her current tour ends. She clearly looks frail and unwell. We do not know what the problem is. I am a recovering anorexic – I’m not saying that she has that condition, but I know only too well what the effects of a serious illness are and I hope that someone is helping her.

As a teenager, I’d hide my body with baggy clothes, which a female pop star can’t do these days, and I’d lie to my parents, to the endocrine consultant, to nurses, to myself. I became vegetarian at 11 to avoid the Sunday roast. But as a female columnist, it’s my duty to be brave, often at personal cost. Not long before Amy Winehouse died, I wrote a piece asking why no one – family, friends, agents, her record label – was able to intervene; as well as being an alcoholic, she was bulimic. The accompanying headline, ‘Amy Decline-house’, was unfortunate, meaning in a documentary (A Life In Ten Pictures) after Amy’s death, a friend of hers condemned my piece as an example of how the press ultimately pushed her over the precipice. It’s easy to be misconstrued.

The issue of female addiction – to cosmetic procedures, diets, fat jabs, alcohol, unsuitable men – is becoming off limits. I went out and about in a fat suit for a piece; on national TV, a body-positive activist tore into me for even trying to understand what it is to be morbidly obese. As someone who’s deaf, I’d be overjoyed if someone spent a few hours in my shoes, experiencing confusion, rudeness and danger.

My career had taken off when in 1999, as a glossy editor, I hugged Brazilian bombshell Gisele Bündchen, backstage at Dior, and wrote she had the fragility of a sparrow. Cue an aggressive letter from her model agent and a round robin from fellow magazine editors ostracising me for speaking up. But I’m doing so again, this time about Ariana – not accusing her of ‘a kind of violence’ as one female columnist posited recently, not body shaming, but because I don’t want her to endure the life I’ve had: unable to swallow even half a banana, unable to be loved, even by myself. I still possess the Ariana chest plate, a xylophone she exposes proudly like a badge, evidence she has a modicum of control over her life.

Fewer than half of sufferers recover from an eating disorder. I predicted Amy would be dead by the age of 25; I was just two years out. The photo of Ariana crouched in a guitar case will stay with me forever.

JONES MOANS… WHAT LIZ LOATHES THIS WEEK

• It has been two long years, but even the specialist firm I employed to find my two missing work pensions has failed. A financial advisor I have just contacted tells me to go on the government website. It doesn’t work!
• Disposable barbecues have been temporarily banned. Bit late now…