Thalia Heffernan stepping back from modelling after receiving health diagnosis

Thalia Heffernan has announced she is taking a step back from modelling after being diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome. The Dubliner has been suffering from ill health for quite some time and finally received a diagnosis.

She said she has made the decision to take a step back from modelling for a while to focus on her health. She told Sunday Independent Life magazine: “Right now, I’m not where I want to be in my confidence. It’s not a reflection on my agent, or anyone.

“Nobody has said anything. But you know, I’ve been through quite a lot in this industry in my weight, so for my own head, I had to take a step back because I was going on set and it was breaking me mentally. I had to go, ‘OK, you need to take a minute to regroup. So financially that was really fun, as you can imagine.”

Thalia also opened up about not returning back to New York after coming home in May 2023 to sort out her visa.

READ MORE: Thalia Heffernan opens up about move back home, admitting she hasn’t been well

READ MORE: Thalia Heffernan opens up about split from boyfriend Ryan McShane and moving to New York

Opening up about her decision, she said: “Work was coming in, but it wasn’t the kind of work, I guess, that I’d dreamt of. I just felt I was in a rat race that I couldn’t get out of. I was starting to get sick physically, and I was also mentally struggling,” she said.

The 28-year-old came home in May 2023 to surprise her mother for her birthday. “I was the happiest I’d been in months.” Going back to New York was hard. She had to come home again in August to sort out her visa, which would take some time.

Thalia said: “I was still planning to go back to New York. I just didn’t know what to do. It was a really awful, awful place to be. I had the dogs back in my care but things were not amicable,” she says of the situation with her ex Ryan McShane, former Dancing With The Stars dancer, over custody of the two lurchers, Leonard and Charlie.

Then one night while out with best pal Erica Cody, Thalia broke down about her situation.

“I broke,” Thalia recalls. “I just couldn’t breathe. It all hit me at once and Erica just held my hand. I had to go back to New York but I had the dogs. It was just awful. And then out of nowhere, to the right, this red blood new moon just appeared. It was kind of a pretty big panic attack, and the first breath I took was when I saw that moon, and then we both looked at each other and I went, I’m staying, amn’t I?”

Erica talked her friend through the panic attack. They would figure it out. Thalia and the dogs could come and live with her and Clem.

“When Erica gave me that space, it felt like somebody had put the foundations in place and I was like ‘OK, now you can build,” she added.

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