Portia DeGeneres says people hiding their sexuality affects troubled gay teens.

DeGeneres makes her remarks in an interview airing Monday on the Oprah Winfrey Show.

The 37-year-old Australian-born actress also tells Oprah that her wife Ellen DeGeneres saved her from her out-of-control eating disorder.

"It wasn't that I was proud of it," she tells Oprah. "But it was certainly a recognition of my self control. I definitely had some pretty amazing willpower to get down to 82 pounds. And that's what I was holding on to. I didn't think about anything else."

The Ally McBeal and Arrested Development star says she once existed on 300 calories a day.

DeGeneres' memoir Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain also arrives on Monday.

In her book, she talks about the fear that kept her in the closet and the power of coming out gay.

"Hiding your sexuality is the most horrible way to live," she writes. "It really does a huge disservice to society because if everybody who is gay came out in every profession - teachers, doctors - if everybody came out and said, 'I'm gay, who cares?' it would make a big impact on what's happening with all this teenage suicide."