YouTube's Highest-Earning Woman Lindsey Stirling Opens Up About Her Eating Disorder

Lindsey Stirling holds on to her precious violin in this new feature for the January 2015 Social Media Issue of Glamour magazine.

The 29-year-old musician is the highest-earning woman on YouTube and opened up to the glossy about that, and more. Check it:

On how she started out: “I was very unfamiliar with YouTube; I thought it was the place for dog and cat videos. Then [videographer] Devin Graham opened me up to this world, and I just knew it was what I was going to do. It was like, ‘I don’t have to wait for someone else to invest in me. I can invest in myself.’ And Devin taught me that people don’t just get viral videos; there is a strategy. One of the tools was doing things that are searchable, like cover songs. Because ‘Lindsey Stirling violin’ was not.”

On her eating disorder: “I want people to have hope. I was 23 the first time I went to a support group. As I listened to the other girls talk, suddenly I didn’t feel like a freak. You’re told that it’s an incurable disease, but I want people to see that I was deep in it�and that now I am out of it.”

On Piers Morgan criticizing her music: “I feel like I owe a lot to Piers Morgan! He gave me a reason to fight. After I had a good cry and pulled myself up by my bootstraps, that hurt and embarrassment turned into extreme motivation�’I'm gonna prove them wrong!’”

For more on Lindsey Stirling, visit Glamour.com.