Gina Rodriguez Reveals When Her Anxiety & Panic Attacks Started

Gina Rodriguez is on the cover of Cosmopolitan magazine’s February 2019 issue, on newsstands January 15.

Here’s what the Jane the Virgin star had to share with the mag…

On the struggles of being in the public eye: “The anxiety started coming, like, two years into Jane. I had my first panic attack at a sushi restaurant. All of a sudden, I thought I was going to die, and people are taking pictures. It was horrendous. There are a lot of things in the manual of living out your dreams that you don’t know about. Like you don’t have any more friends. You never go out to eat. You never see your family, your boyfriend, girlfriend, or whatever you have….”

On her self-worth: “I finally love my body. I let go of the anxiety and the fear of not looking beautiful. Because it’s not about the picture. It’s about the fact that I stand on this cover with every Latina who wished she saw herself reflected. Because it’s not my face—it’s the 55-million-plus girls who are like, ‘Holy shit! We belong.’”

On her fiancé, actor Joe LoCicero: “Dating Joe was a new experience for me because I put myself first. For so long, I put every man in front of me. As a successful woman, it is so hard because of our cultural norms that, like, the man has to be the breadwinner! And the man has to be the more powerful one. It was so difficult for me to find a man who didn’t want me to dim my light for his ego.”

For more from Gina, visit Cosmopolitan.com.