In a recent podcast, Millie Bobby Brown admitted that coming of age in the public eye and being sexualised felt ‘gross’ and ‘overwhelming’.
Millie Bobby Brown says that growing up and coming of age in the public eye was an ‘overwhelming’ experience, primarily because of the rampant sexualisation she experienced as a teen.
In a new interview on The Guilty Feminist podcast, Brown said that turning 18 in the public eye was stressful for her, partly because of the media response to it.
Saying that she definitely noticed a difference between how people reacted to her turning 18 versus how the media covered it, she added: “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.”
“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.” she added.
The actress added that while her experience wasn’t the only one of its kind, it certainly represented how young girls are sexualised all over.
“[It’s] a good representation of what’s going on in the world and how young girls are sexualised. I have been dealing with that — but I have also been dealing with that for forever.” she said.
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A few days short of Brown’s 18th birthday, countdowns to the day the star turned 18 cropped up all over social media forums.
On Reddit, a subreddit meant to share NSFW pictures of Brown once she became an adult was allegedly banned only days before her 18th birthday. The actress also saw a marked difference in how people commented on her pictures on Instagram once she became an adult.
Brown’s experiences also sparked a discussion on how other female stars who had grown up in the public domain had been treated.
Emma Watson, for example, spoke up about the treatment she had received in the run-up to and days after her 18th birthday. A national tabloid ran a countdown numbering the days till she turned 18. A day after her 18th birthday, inappropriate photos of the star were published in the newspapers.
“I remember on my 18th birthday I came out of my birthday party and photographers laid down on the pavement and took photographs up my skirt, which were then published on the front of the English tabloid [newspapers] the next morning.” Watson said at the HeForShe conference in 2016.
“If they had published the photographs 24 hours earlier they would have been illegal, but because I had just turned 18 they were legal,” she said.
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