McPhee Opens Up About Bulimia

"American Idol" runner-up Katharine McPhee struggled with an eating disorder that threatened her singing career, People magazine reports in its new issue on newsstands Friday.

She also credits the TV competition with saving her life, "because if I hadn't auditioned,, I don't think I would have gotten a handle on food," she told the magazine.

For five years McPhee battled bulimia which, as she describes it, was like "putting a sledgehammer to your vocal cords," she said.

"When I made it onto 'American Idol,' I knew that food — my eating disorder — was the one thing really holding me back," the 22-year-old told People. "I was bingeing my whole life away for days at a time … So when I got on the show, I said, 'You know what? I can do well in this competition. Let me give myself a chance and just get a hold of this thing.'"

The singer said she spent three months in group and individual therapy at Los Angeles' Eating Disorder Center of California last year and that the program she participated in was very intense.

"I really had to surrender and give up having a free life to do the program, because I'd be there from nine in the morning until seven at night," she said. "I remember that first night, my dad holding me, crying and saying, 'I don't know why you have to suffer through this, but it's going to be OK.'"

McPhee said she has struggled with bulimia since she was a teenager. "Growing up in Los Angeles and spending all those years in dance class, I'd been conscious of body image at a young age," she said. "And I went through phases of exercising compulsively and starving myself. ... Food was my crutch; it was how I dealt with emotions and uncomfortable situations."

McPhee, whose new singles "Over the Rainbow" and "My Destiny" will be released on June 27, now practices "intuitive eating," a strategy she learned at the L.A. facility. "I learned that there's no such thing as a bad food," she told People. "If you look at a doughnut, people think it's a fattening food — why? Because if you eat it you'll get fat? No, you'll get fat if you eat 10 doughnuts."