Former Wimbledon champion Marion Bartoli revealed that her ex-boyfriend made her life hell through fat-shaming, even triggering the eating disorder that nearly took her life.
Bartoli, 33, announced last month that she is planning a comeback after she retired just 40 days following her Wimbledon championship in 2013, but in an interview with L’Equipe, the Frenchwoman said her former boyfriend’s constant taunts almost ended everything.
“When I retired, I was the happiest in the world,” Bartoli said. “Then I met my ex-boyfriend in May 2014, and every day he would tell me that I was fat. Every day. He would see a thin girl on the street and tell me: ‘See how skinny and pretty she is.’ That didn’t help me. Once you’re in that spiral, it’s difficult to stop.”
After she captured the grand slam tournament, Bartoli said she was content with her career and her life. But shortly after, her life began to spiral when her ex started the psychological warfare.
“I’d lost a lot of weight before my virus because of my ex, who made my life hell,” she said. “He was really a total a–hole. I learned a lot there, too. Because of my personality, I accepted the unacceptable. I was telling myself, ‘No, it’s not serious, no, it’s not serious,’ and it completely destroyed me. I don’t want to live like that anymore. It’s true, I’d lost a lot of weight, I was weak, and with a weakened immune system, I caught a virus in India that finished me. I was already extremely thin, or even skinny, but I didn’t see it.”
Bartoli previously stated her weight-loss battle was because of the virus and shortly before summer 2016, she was barred from playing in an invitational event at Wimbledon, where they said she wasn’t physically healthy enough to participate in a women’s doubles exhibition match. But this is the first time Bartoli admitted that her troubling relationship caused her to drop too much weight.
“I let myself get destroyed by someone, and I did not think it was possible,” she said.
While Bartoli is planning to return to professional competition for the Miami Open on March 21, she told the paper that she won’t return to the court unless she reaches her optimum weight to prevent injury, with her aiming to lose between 11 and 15 pounds.
Bartoli has been spending nearly all of her days at the French training center playing tennis and exercising. She’s scheduled to play in an exhibition match with the Williams sisters in New York on March 7.