Netflix series Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown, 18, blasted Hollywood for overly sexualizing young girls and called social media the “worst place of all time.”
The teen star was cast at 12 for the popular Netflix series Stranger Things, which quickly catapulted her to stardom. But as she said on The Guilty Feminist podcast on Monday, it was difficult growing up under Hollywood’s spotlight.
Calling it “gross,” Brown said the way she is treated by the industry and the media “can be really overwhelming.”
“I deal with the same things any 18-year-old is dealing with, navigating being an adult and having relationships and friendships, and it’s all of those things,” Brown said. “Being liked and trying to fit in, it’s all a lot, and you’re trying to [know] yourself while doing that. The only difference is obviously I’m doing that in the public eye.”
“It can be really overwhelming,” the actress added of being sexualized as a young girl. “I have definitely been dealing with that more in the last couple weeks of turning 18. [I’m] definitely seeing a difference between the way people act and the way the press and social media react to me coming of age.”
“It’s gross,” she said, continuing to note that how Hollywood sexualizes young girls is “a good representation of what’s going on in the world and how young girls are sexualized. I have been dealing with that — but I have also been dealing with that for forever.”
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Brown said getting to the age of 16 took “forever,” but she went on to say things need to change in how kids are treated.
“There are moments I get frustrated from the inaccuracy, inappropriate comments, sexualization and unnecessary insults that ultimately have resulted in pain and insecurity for me,” Brown wrote on Instagram when she turned 16 in 2020. “But not ever will I be defeated. I’ll continue doing what I love and spreading the message in order to make change.”
Brown recalled that she was accused of sexualizing herself and trying to look older with her choice of dresses for events.
“I just got crucified,” she said. “I thought is this really what we should be talking about? We should be talking about the incredible people that were there at the awards show, the talent that was there, the people we are representing.”
Brown also blasted social media as the “worst place of all time,” and added that she has stopped trying to be too personal online.
“I’m not posting anything personal anymore. You’re not gonna see that part of me. You get to see the things I choose to put out in the world,” Brown explained. “I hope if there’s a 12-year-old that’s told Instagram they’re 18, and they’ve created an account, they’re going on my account and they’re not being exploited to the horrible world that’s out there.”
Millie Bobby Brown is far from alone in her criticism of Hollywood’s treatment of kids in the business. A fellow teen actor, former Disney star Cole Sprouse, also recently slammed Hollywood for sexualizing young children.
The now 29-year-old actor came into the limelight in 2005 as the star of the Disney Channel series, The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, along with his twin brother, Dylan. But he had begun his career as a toddler.
Recently, Sprouse noted that some people have remarked that he “made it out” of Hollywood unscathed. But, that isn’t exactly true.
“My brother and I used to get quite a bit of, ‘Oh, you made it out! Oh, you’re unscathed!’ No. The young women on the channel we were on [Disney Channel] were so heavily sexualized from such an earlier age than my brother and I that there’s absolutely no way that we could compare our experiences,” Sprouse told the New York Times.
“Every single person going through that trauma has a unique experience,” Sprouse added. “When we talk about child stars going nuts, what we’re not actually talking about is how fame is a trauma.”
“So I’m violently defensive against people who mock some of the young women who were on the channel when I was younger because I don’t feel like it adequately comprehends the humanity of that experience and what it takes to recover,” he said.
The problem is nothing new. Troubled actor Corey Haim died in 2010 after reportedly facing years of sexual abuse by members of the Hollywood establishment.
That saga of abuse has been repeatedly alleged by fellow child star Corey Feldman, who was a close friend of Haim. Feldman says that both he and Haim suffered abuse of the most horrific kind in the 1980s and 1990s when they were up-and-coming teenage actors.
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