Ever since she earned the role of Eleven on the Netflix hit series Stranger Things, Millie Bobby Brown has been navigating her adolescence (and now her young adulthood) in the public eye. Over the course of her very young career, Brown has been subjected to being overly sexualized when she was just a girl. Now at 18, Brown opened up about how truly disturbing the trend is, and how the scrutiny has impacted her.
“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 shared on a recent episode of The Guilty Feminist podcast. “Being liked and trying to fit in, it’s all a lot and you’re trying to find yourself while doing that. The only difference is that, obviously, I’m doing that in the public eye. So it can be really overwhelming.”
Just weeks after turning 18, the Enola Holmes star began to notice “a difference between the way people act and the way that the press and social media have reacted to me coming of age. I believe that shouldn’t change anything, but it’s gross and it’s true.” Brown went on to say the pervasive fixation is a “very good representation of what’s going on in the world and how young girls are sexualized.”
Furthermore, the Emmy-nominated actress noted she’s “been dealing with that for forever.” After years under the spotlight, Brown revealed she’s “so aware of my body and how I look. Not in a bad way, but I’m very aware of how my face moves on camera now.” As the young actress has come into her own, Brown has been incredibly forthcoming about the scrutiny she faced as a child actor and now a young adult. What Brown was, and continues to be, put through is nothing new. In fact, we’ve seen over and over again the troubling ways in which young female stars are constantly sexualized. But as actresses like Brown continue to call out how it’s impacted them, then maybe we’ll get to a place where this type of coverage is a thing of the past.
Before you go, click here to see celebrities who have spoken out about being sexualized too young.
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