André Leon Talley admits his weight has long been a battle in his memoir, The Chiffon Trenches.
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“Food was always a part of my life,” he told PEOPLE magazine, “and a source of comfort.” Beginning as a child secretly suffering from sexual abuse, he escaped into the pages of Vogue and his grandmother’s biscuits.
Talley never told anyone he was sexually abused as a child – not the therapists he has seen, not even his beloved pastor.
Because of the abuse, Talley says he has never really had an intimate relationship.
Although he was trim when he was first hired at Vogue in 1983, he began to gain weight when he entered his mid 40s. “I began to realize I had a problem.”
In 2004, there was an intervention. He was sent to Duke University Diet and Fitness Center for a several-week stint. “I lost 55 lbs. But I did not follow the rules.” He would return two more times — “It’s the same with alcohol, I’d often say ‘I’ve fallen off the wagon,’ when I’d go back to Duke — and have an unsuccessful Lap Band surgery.
“The experience for me is always very daunting in the beginning,” he told PEOPLE magazine in 2017. You certainly have to reboot your skills in weight-loss and I think it’s one of the best places to do that.”
His battle continues today. “I cannot control this addiction,” he says. “I am obese.”
In his book, André Leon Tally also writes about his friend, designer Karl Lagerfeld’s food issues. Apparently the designer liked to travel with a suitcase packed full of his favorite bread. Bread was Lagerfeld’s “one craving” while dieting, Talley writes. “He would chew the bread, savoring every bite, and then spit it out into a napkin,” Talley continues. “That seemed like a lot of trouble, but it worked for him, apparently, as he eventually lost one hundred pounds.”
André Leon Talley admits he still struggles every day.