'This Is Us' Star Chrissy Metz Details Stepfather's Alleged Body Shaming and Abuse: 'My Body Seemed to Offend Him'

In an excerpt from Metz's new memoir -- "This Is Me" -- published alongside People's cover story about the actress, Metz details the beatings she claims she used to endure from her stepfather, Trigger, and the humiliating weigh-ins he would subject her to.

"My body seemed to offend him, but he couldn't help but stare, especially when I was eating," Metz wrote in her book. "He joked about putting a lock on the refrigerator. We had lived with a lack of food for so long that when it was there, I felt like I had to eat it before it disappeared. Food was my only happiness."

As a result, Metz said she began to "hide her eating," which she would do to to experience a "brief bliss of numbness."

"When I was 14, Trigger began weighing me," she said. "He'd get the scale from the bathroom and clang it hard on the kitchen floor. 'Well, get on the damn thing!' Trigger would yell. 'This is what you need to know.'"

Metz said Trigger used to sit in a chair and watch her weigh herself, yelling "Good God almighty!" each and every time.

"The number then was about 140 or 130," she wrote. "Most of my friends weighed about 90 pounds. 'Why are you getting fatter?' he demanded. I look at pictures of me from that time, and I would be so fine with being that size now. But I thought I was gigantic. By then, the beating had escalated. One time, he hit me, and I looked right in his face. If I had a gun, I thought, 'I would shoot you.'"

"Afterward, I was so upset with myself. How could I think that about this person I loved so much?" she continued. "Because I really did love him. This man did more for me than my father ever did. He was smart, and I was allowed to quietly join him in watching the Ken Burns Civil War documentaries on television. I clung to [these points of connection] because I needed to figure out why this person could do right by me as a provider, but be unable to love me."

Metz said her biological father left her family when she was 8 years old. Her mother went on to have a fourth child, Morgana, with another man before marrying Trigger, who became Chrissy's stepfather. Trigger already had one daughter of his own. Then he and Metz's mother had another daughter together -- Abigail.

According to Metz, "Trigger loved his two biological children, and was even welcoming to Morgana. Me, not so much. My mother was always at work, so she didn't see how he treated me."

"I don't remember why Trigger hit me the first time," she continued. "He never punched my face -- just my body, the thing that offended him so much. He shoved me, slapped me, punched my arm. He would hit me if he thought I looked at him wrong."

Metz said Trigger has since apologized and that he even wrote her a letter when she moved to Hollywood to pursue acting, in which he told her how proud he was of her and how much he loved her.

"That's all I ever wanted him to say," Metz said. "We have a relationship now. I do love him, and I do care about him."

In a statement to Entertainment Tonight, Trigger denied the allegations, saying, "None of it's true. I love her very much, just like I always have, and I treat her just like she's one of mine. I want the best for her."