Game of Thrones star Maisie Williams says she ‘hated herself every day’

'It's something I'm really trying to break free from at the moment'

Maisie Williams has revealed that she struggles with self-doubt, explaining that it has become “impossible to turn a blind eye” to the cruel comments she’s received on social media since she became famous.

Speaking to Fearne Cotton on her Happy Place podcast, the Game of Thrones star said she can occasionally feel herself “going down a rabbit hole” looking through negative comments.

“It gets to a point where you're almost craving something negative so you can sit in a hole of sadness,” she added. “It's really bizarre the way that it starts to consume you."

Williams went on to explain that she has found herself experiencing crippling feelings of self-hatred at times.

“It's something I'm really trying to break free from at the moment," she said.

"I went through a huge period of my life where I'd tell myself every day that I hated myself. It got to a point where I'd be in a conversation with my friends and my mind would running and running, and I'd be thinking about all the stupid things I've said in my life and it would just race and race.

"We'd be talking and I'd be like 'I hate myself'.”

But once the actor started to examine her feelings, she found that they had little to do with her.

"So many of these problems are really linked to things in your past,” she explained, “as soon as you start digging and start asking yourself bigger questions than: Why do I hate myself? It's more: Why do you make yourself feel this way?"

Williams concluded by saying that while she still struggles with feelings of sadness and low confidence, it’s something she is “really working on”.

“One thing I learnt is that everyone is a little bit sad and it was really eye-opening to me to understand that I think," she added.

"The more we talk and the more we help one another, I think that’s really important.”

Cotton has made similar comments herself in the past with regards to her mental wellbeing, telling The Independent last month that she once struggled with regular panic attacks.

"I had a really bad patch about two years ago, where I was getting them every few days," she said.