140 InSTYLE AUGUST 2019
Never one to keep quiet, actress and activist
JAMEELA JAMIL calls it like she sees itby SAMANTHA SIMON photographed by CAMILLA ARMBRUST
styled by L AU R E L PA NT I NVo ı c eI
thet’s a dreary Sunday morning in New York City, but inside Morgenstern’s Finest
Ice Cream shop in Greenwich Village, Jameela Jamil is as cheery as can be.
Plunking down in a booth, she attributes her livelier-than-usual mood to an
excess of caffeine and sugar. “The only way you could lure me out of bed on a
Sunday is with ice cream,” she deadpans. “This was bribery.”
Sugarcoating isn’t something that Jamil, 33, is known for. Over the past year
or so she’s become one of Holly wood’s most outspoken stars, using her platform of two mil-
lion Instagram followers to tackle the industry-wide problem of body shaming. But Jamil
hasn’t always been this comfortable in her own skin. Long before the British actress, who is
of Indian-Pakistani descent, landed the role of statuesque socialite Tahani Al-Jamil on the
NBC comedy The Good Place, she struggled to feel confident. Growing up in London, she
experienced myriad health problems, including childhood deafness and Ehlers-Danlos syn-
drome, a connective-tissue disease that causes joint dislocation and chronic pain. As a teen,
she suffered from a crippling eating disorder, starving herself to look like the women she saw
in magazines. Then, when she was 17, Jamil was struck by a car in a freak accident. Doctors
didn’t think she’d ever get back on her feet, but a year and a half later she proved them wrong.
With “no interest in show business” at the time, she took a job teaching English as a for-
eign language. But a chance meeting with a producer in a pub led to an audition for a TV-
hosting gig, and soon she became one of Britain’s top TV and radio personalities. “It was
more money than I’d ever seen as a teacher,” she says. “More important, though, it was a
chance to use my positioning for awareness.”