Lily Collins (33) had to live through a less beautiful relationship. The Emily in Paris actress is now happily married: in September 2021 she gave her partner Charlie McDowell (39) the yes word. Again and again, the couple shows themselves as familiar and happy in public. But before the relationship, the actress had to make a bad experience: now Lily is talking about her toxic ex-boyfriend.
“For me, my romantically toxic relationship was one of verbal and emotional abuse and a feeling of being worth very little,” she admits on the podcast We Can Do Hard Things. Lily goes even further: “He used to call me little Lily… and he used horrible words about me, in terms of what I was wearing, and calling me a whore and all that stuff.” This gnawed at her self-confidence and Lily withdrew more and more.
She is now all the happier to be in a healthy and stable relationship. Still, sometimes old memories come flooding back: “It’s like a millisecond or less than a millisecond, and your gut reacts, your heart starts pounding, and all of a sudden you’re transported back to the moment when the person did that ten years ago told you,” Lily explains. However, Charlie is a great support in these moments and they can talk openly about these triggers.