Jackie Evancho shares her eating disorder battle

Jackie Evancho is speaking honestly about her battle with an eating disorder, and her ongoing fight with osteoporosis.

The singer, 22, tells People magazine that she's struggled with disordered eating since she was a teenager, the America's Got Talent alum — who placed second in 2010, at just 10 years old — knew she needed help last year after she was hospitalized following a January 2021 car accident that broke her back in two places.

"They were abnormal breaks, breaks that you see in 80-year-olds," Evancho explains. "That's how I learned that my eating problems created osteoporosis. So now I'm a 22-year-old with osteoporosis."

But the bone-disease diagnosis didn't immediately compel Evancho to address her food issues.

"I had to eat [for my bones] to heal, and that really messed me up with my eating problems, because I was gaining weight to heal," she says. "Once I finally healed, my disorder said, 'OK, now you've got to be really hard on yourself to get all of that out of you . . . and then some.'"

Evancho eventually sought treatment last October at an inpatient facility. Her anorexia has been an ongoing health hurdle, just as her recovery continues to be a work in progress.