Acting Helped Yellowstone Star Jen Landon Rewrite The Narrative About Her Body's 'Value'

Jen Landon may have come from Hollywood royalty, but in a world where we're obsessed with how celebs look, the added scrutiny since she was a child has certainly not made life a walk in the park. The "Yellowstone" star has always been keenly aware of one of the pitfalls of being a woman, in that you'd be judged purely from aesthetic reasons first prior to anything else. In a segment of the "Becoming Recovered: Body and Soul" podcast, Landon made this clear. "Growing up, what you looked like was your value. Not how smart you were, it was not what you did, it was, 'Were you pretty and did men find you attractive.'"

And it didn't help that Landon was suffering from an eating disorder during her teens. But the star found that following in her actor father's legacy was a massive step towards healing. "I can't speak for anyone else with an eating disorder, but I can speak to my own experience ... When I'm acting, my body literally is just like a tool that's telling a story," Landon candidly shared with podcast host Carolyn Costin. Similar to how Lady Gaga was open and honest about her mental health struggles, we can certainly appreciate Landon and other celebs' growing willingness to divulge deeply personal battles with the world. 

Although Jen Landon eventually came to see acting as a way to battle her eating disorder, she actually did not have dreams of becoming an actor initially. As the daughter of Michael Landon of "Bonanza" fame, it comes as no surprise that she was featured in one of her father's films, "Highway to Heaven", as a child. However, that major experience was not the one that inspired her to view acting as a viable career path. In fact, Landon revealed in an exclusive chat with Smashing Interviews that it was something more innocuous and heartwarming. 

"It was at a friend's birthday party. They brought all these "Little Mermaid" costumes out ... I was Ursula, the mean lady," Landon recounted to the publication, "I remember people laughing, really laughing. I just felt this thing turn on." And with the realization that she also liked "entertaining people," the rest was history. She found fame in hit shows such as "As the World Turns" and "Yellowstone," eventually winning three Daytime Emmy awards for her efforts, and we're more than happy for her success.