Taylor Lautner “Not Aging Well”? “Twilight” Actor Responds to Criticism

Taylor Lautner has reacted to criticism from some of her followers on social media about her appearance during a recent visit to New York.

On Tuesday, the 31-year-old American actor shared a video and used the criticism to get back to talking about mental health.

“I just got back from a run, I was feeling really good about myself, trying to stay healthy physically and mentally, and I wanted to share something with you because when I got back from that run, I jumped on Instagram and read a post from last week. I was reading the comments and it brought up old feelings and memories about why I didn’t read the comments,” said the actor popularized by the “Twilight” saga (quoted by People magazine).

He then revealed several examples of comments about him “not aging well” and “he looks so old”.

“These comments are only for a single post, which is crazy, but this is the world we live in and there’s not much we can do to change it,” he continued.

“If this was 10 years ago, five years ago, maybe even two, three years ago, this would have affected me and made me want to stick myself in a hole and not come out”, he clarified, recalling what he called an “unhealthy” time of your life.

“We find value where we put it. And if we put our value in what other people think of us, that’s how we’re going to feel. But if we put our value in knowing who we are, what’s important to us, what we love , these kinds of things don’t affect us,” he added.

The actor admitted that comments about his appearance bothered him, but “does not make me question who I am”, showing gratitude for being “now in a different phase”.

“My biggest goal is just to reflect and remember where you place your worth in life and also just be kind. It’s not that hard. Let’s be kind to each other. Let’s spread the love and positivity. As simple as that this,” he concluded.

THE VIDEO.

Actor admits that the images of physical transformation in the “Twilight” films affected his mental health

Between the first “Twilight” and the sequel “The Twilight Saga: New Moon,” Taylor Lautner underwent an impressive physical transformation to retain his role as Jacob Black, transforming himself from Bella’s (Kristen Stewart) inconspicuous childhood friend to a convincing future alpha wolf and rival to Edward Collen (Robert Pattinson).

Overnight, the actor became another “sex symbol” for fans of the saga and dominated the covers of magazines and the internet. The good form even launched a (brief) career as the lead in other action films.

But the sculptural form displayed to exhaustion brought the actor problems of perception about the aesthetics or attractiveness of his own body and mental health was affected by comparisons between the “before” and the “after”.

“When I was making the films, from 16 to 20 years old, this saga in which my character was known for always taking his shirt off, no, I didn’t know that it was affecting me or would affect me in the future in terms of image body,” the actor said on The Squeeze podcast in February.

“In the first one, I was at 63.5 kilos and in ‘Lua Nova’ at 79. So, yes, that was not my natural body. I had to work a lot for it and a lot just to maintain it”, he recalled.

With the saga ending in 2012, Taylor Lautner says he hesitated to hit the gym after years of being “forced” to be “many times a day, six days a week”.

Result: the sculptural form was lost and he began “to have a more natural body”.

Despite thinking he “was fine”, comparisons emerged to shirtless side-by-side images in the movie “Run the Tide” (2016) and from his “Twilight” days, with comments suggesting that he was “letting go” in terms of in a physical way.

The comparisons had a big impact on his mental health, with the actor saying that he went through stages where he got in shape or others where he didn’t care.

“I got healthy again, but to get my body physically healthy, my mind first needed to get healthy. Those side-by-side images went on for years and years and it got to me. It hurt,” he admitted.

Based on experience, the actor defended that dealing with body image involves both physical form and mental health: “Your body can look unbelievable. You can be pumped, ripped, whatever. You can lose weight, gain muscle, and if you’re not mentally healthy, then it’s all for nothing because it can work against you”.

“Don’t find happiness in how you want your body to be. Don’t think that by losing ten kilos or gaining muscle, you’re going to wake up and look in the mirror and suddenly be happy. That’s not where you should find value” , reinforced.