Ashley JuddAshley Judd has admitted she checked herself into rehab earlier this year to help her deal with the effects of her “chaotic and dysfunctional” upbringing and not an eating disorder as was rumoured at the time.

Ashley spent 47 days in a Texas rehabilitation facility in February and March this year to work through issues around isolation and depression.

She told Glamour magazine: “I needed help. I was in so much pain.”

“[But] People said to me, ‘You look too good, you’re too smart and together to need rehab’. No one had validated my pain before.”

Ashley realised she could be helped when she attended counselling sessions with her sister Wynonna. Wynonna is suffering from a food addition and Ashley wasn’t surprised when rumours started that she was suffering from an eating disorder herself.

“I think it was an easy thing [for the media] to say, my sister was an overeater and I’m little, so I must be anorexic or bulimic. I’m not, but I did take a look at my eating - why wouldn’t I? I looked at everything else in my life under a microscope.”

“I was unhappy, and now I’m happy - even when I’m having a rough day, it’s better than my best days before treatment.”

“Now I try to remind myself that if I engage in perfectionism, I am abusing myself.”