Erin Molan: ‘I spent 20 years hating the way I looked’

She is one of the most popular media personalities in the country but Erin Molan has publicly revealed a lifelong “unhealthy obsession”, in an emotional new interview as she poses in a bikini shoot.

Erin Molan has revealed she has struggled with body image issues for 20 years, calling it “the unhealthiest of obsessions”.

In a new interview with Stellar’s podcast, Something To Talk About, the popular radio and TV host admitted she hated her body “since she was 14”.

“The irony is that most people looking at me would think, ‘what the hell would she have to worry about with her body?’ And that almost makes it harder for me to talk

about it now, because I feel like people are going, well, that’s utterly ridiculous,” Molan said.

“If I looked a different way, they might say, oh, we understand more. It makes no difference at all whether I’m 120 kilos or 40.

Listen to the full interview with Erin Molan on Something To Talk About below or on Apple Podcasts:

“If I don’t like myself, it doesn’t matter what I look like. I can still legitimately hate my body as much as someone else who might not be what society deems to be attractive or an acceptable shape.”

Posing in a bikini for a shoot for Stellar, the 40-year-old said she had come to a place of self-acceptance.

Erin Molan has posed in a bikini for Stellar, where she has spoken about her struggles with self-acceptance. Picture: Christopher Ferguson for Stellar

“It doesn’t matter how old I am, what size I am – if I feel good in something, then I’m going to wear it and I’m going to make up for every frickin’ year that I didn’t go to the beach when I was 18, 25, 30, 35. I’m 40. My body, I think, is kind of getting better as I get older.”

As she joins Stellar for her new role as a regular columnist, Molan also recalled the moment that triggered “the unhealthiest of obsessions”.

“My weight came first, but only ever with me,” she writes in her first column, featured in Stellar’s first issue of 2024.

Molan said she stopped criticising herself and was no longer “hiding my beautiful body, nor caring what anyone thinks of its size, its shape or how I dress it”.

‘I spent more than 20 years hating the way I looked.’ Erin Molan has given a raw interview about body image on Stellar’s podcast, Something to Talk About. Picture: Getty Images

“It makes me so sad. My heart breaks for me, which itself shows how far I’ve come,” Molan revealed in her column.

“The old me never had empathy for myself; I didn’t deserve it. Now? Well, that’s a different story. I spent more than 20 years hating the way I looked. Hiding parts,

avoiding the beach and punishing myself in every way imaginable. Today, I’m not perfect but, bloody hell, I’m much improved. I’d love to be able to tell you the secret.

Having my daughter? It helped, but not entirely. Turning 40? With age comes wisdom, but old habits die hard. Honestly, I just got sick to death of it.”

Read Erin Molan’s full column in Stellar tomorrow (Sunday). Her special bonus episode of Something to Talk About is out now below:

Listen to Something To Talk About RIGHT HERE on Apple Podcasts

Originally published as Erin Molan: ‘I spent 20 years hating the way I looked’