Chrissy Metz Looks Back on 'Devastating' Treatment from Stepfather: 'He Would Threaten to Lock the Cupboards' (Exclusive)

• Chrissy Metz had a candid conversation with Jamie Kern Lima on the latest episode of her podcast, which airs Oct. 22, PEOPLE reports exclusively
• The This is us star shared how her stepfather shamed her for her weight – and how, at the age of 12, she wondered: “Why does my weight equate to my worth?”
• Metz said fame has changed the way strangers treat her on airplanes; Now they welcome her to sit next to them, but before it was TV, it was, ‘Oh my God, there’s a big girl coming that I have to sit next to.’

Chrissy Metz looks back at how her weight affected how her stepfather, friends and even strangers treated her – and how that changed after she became famous.

Her stepfather “would size me up in the kitchen or threaten to lock the closets, and I was like, ‘I don’t think you get it,’” Metz, 44, told host Jamie Kern Lima on the Oct. 22 episode. her podcast, carried exclusively by PEOPLE.

“I think there’s a lot more awareness now about food, food issues, food-related behavior … we educate people, the fear goes away. And maybe he was just afraid. I don’t really know,” the This is us star, who grew up in Florida as the middle child of five, said. “But yes, I mean, [it was] definitely mental, physical, emotional abuse for sure.”

She spoke of the lasting effect of his comments, saying “emotional things… they’re like little cuts, little cuts and eventually you bleed out. It’s painful.”

“Why is my weight equal to my worth?” she asked. “And as a 12-year-old kid, it’s like, how do you reconcile that in your mind?”

The Masked singer contestant said she struggled with feeling accepted in her adolescence, explaining, “You look like no other friend and you can’t fit into any of the cute Wet Seal clothes that they can fit into. You say, ‘Oh, let me borrow your necklace.’ ”

Chrissy Metz Says She ‘Always Wanted To Do’ A One-Woman Show With Her Music (Exclusive)

“Also, all the boys liked my friends—and I always felt like I was getting cute boys for my friends.”

These days, Metz says, “I think I’m trying to heal those wounds slowly but surely. And that is not easy… The root of it is, ‘I am unworthy’. ”

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

Metz told Lima that “there’s so much stigma around weight, and there still is for a myriad of reasons, but I think there’s an idea like, ‘Oh, you can’t leave food down’ or ‘You’re lazy.’ ‘ ”

“Beautiful models are on a pedestal, even though they are also very unhealthy. They don’t take care of their bodies. But when you are overweight, it is a completely different matter. It’s so bizarre,” said Metz.

It’s that stigma that made people “sigh, or not want to look at me or not want to engage” when she sat next to them on the plane, Metz said.

“This Is Us” stars (from left) Justin Hartley, Chrissy Metz, Mandy Moore and Sterling K. Brown.

Ron Batzdorff/Getty

Chrissy Metz Teases Possible Future ‘This Is Us’ Reunion: ‘Everybody Wants To See It’

“Before the show, I could go on a plane and someone couldn’t want to sit next to me if they were too squished or they’d be like, ‘Oh, God, here comes this big girl I have to sit next to.’ ”

“But because I’m on a TV show now, they don’t care. Or they say, ‘Oh, you’re famous.’ ”

“It was always like they would be bothered by me sitting next to them, or they wouldn’t look at me twice, or they wouldn’t engage. And then when I became, let’s put that in quotes, knownthen they want to talk or they were more apt to want to sit next to me.”

Chrissy Metz on the Jamie Kern Lima show.

courtesy of The Jamie Kern Lima Show

The PEOPLE Puzzler has arrived! How fast can you solve it? Play now!

“It’s still something my friends and I talk about because what does it even mean? What could I provide them or what insight could I share with them? I don’t know Do they feel cool sitting next to someone famous? I don’t know.”

“I don’t understand,” Metz said. “Behavior like that…makes you not want to trust people.”

Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education