Penn Badgley is opening up about his struggle with body dysmorphia growing up.

The You star, 38, recently revealed that he had difficulty accepting his looks as a kid even though he was never officially diagnosed by a doctor or psychologist.

“I know that I hated my body and simply wanted a different one,” he told The Guardian.

The actor went into details of it, revealing that his parents’ divorce and social isolation was a driving factor behind it as he began overeating and putting on weight.

Badgley admitted that he began wishing he looked like the men in the movies who he idolised.

“There was just a period where, coming out of depression and isolation, I was jumping willfully into, but also being thrust into, this world where the more conventionally beautiful I seemed, the more successful I might be, the more value I might have,” he said.

“There’s no way to get past the superficiality of this work, and if you recognise that, you can’t help but recognise the superficiality of our culture, because of the way it rewards this work.”

The Gossip Girl alum admitted to feeling disoriented with fame, saying he considered quitting acting at a time.

“What was that show other than aesthetic? That was its thing, the way we all looked,” he noted. “I didn’t particularly love the superficial celebrity aspect of the way I was perceived.”

However, the actor-producer eventually made peace with it as he explored spirituality.

“That is what allowed me to persevere through the disillusionment, all the things I’d been grappling with, and then come back to it all, but with hopefully some kind of inner transformation,” he explained.