Nicole Scherzinger is the proud owner of one of the most desirable figures in showbiz, but the struggle to achieve this is not widely known.

Before the songstress finally became comfortable with her body image, she went through a "paralyzing" battle with bulimia.

And for the first time ever, Scherzinger speaks candidly about suffering from the eating disorder in the August issue of Cosmopolitan magazine in the U.K.

"[Opening up about bulimia] was hard for me to speak about," she said to the mag. "It still is hard, and thinking about it I try not to well up."

"It is such a horrible, paralyzing disease and it was such a dark time for me," she explained, referring to her mid-20s. "I didn't think anyone knew in my group or in my family because I hid it that well, I was so ashamed. I knew it wasn't normal or healthy because I was hurting myself through this cycle of disordered eating. It was my drug, my addiction. It's an endless vicious cycle."

The 36 year-old admitted to only realizing the severity of her health when passing out while on tour.

"I had started losing my voice, I couldn't sing at shows, and then I remember my manager finding me passed out on the floor in Malta or in the south of France," she recalled. "I thought, 'I'm going to lose everything I love if I don't love myself.'"

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"One day when you feel like you've reached the end, you just say, 'I'm not doing this anymore.' It's sad to see how I wasted my life," Nicole added. "I had such a great life on the outside, the Dolls were on top of the world but I was miserable on the inside. I'm never letting that happen again; you only get one life-I was 27 only once."

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Now the fit and healthy star has plenty of things in her life to make her happy, especially dating Formula 1 racer Louis Hamilton.

"Well, it's something crazy romantic," she said. "Relationships are hard and having to hold a long-distance relationship is even harder ... But I'm good and I'm happy."

Nicole Scherzinger
Scherzinger admitted her battle with bulimia almost destroyed her