Millie Bobby Brown has served as an inspiration to us all for the millionth time, opening up about how her mental health was impacted by social media trolls and online hate.
The Stranger Things actress talked “shutting down” in response to pressure from others online, which has been particularly difficult due to her young age, and the fact that she was still figuring herself out when she was exposed to online abuse and accusations from both strangers and former friends.
She has since deleted Twitter and TikTok, and others take care of her Instagram and Facebook accounts, as a result of the bullying.
“It’s really hard to be hated on when you don’t know who you are yet,” she said in an interview with Allure. “So it’s like, ‘What do they hate about me? ’Cause I don’t know who I am.’ It’s almost like, ‘Okay, I’m going to try being this today.’ [And then they say], ‘Oh, no, I hate that.’ ‘Okay. Forget that. I’m going to try being this today.’ ‘Oh, my God! I hate when you do that.’
“Then you just start shutting down because you’re like, ‘Who am I meant to be? Who do they need me to be for them?’ Then I started to grow more, and my family and friends really helped. It helped to be able to understand that I don’t need to be anything they said that I need to be. I just have to develop within myself. That’s what I did.”
Millie Bobby Brown also gave an amazingly frank explanation as to why she enjoys acting, and how it feeds into her self-worth and fights her sense of isolation.
“I enjoyed being different people because I always struggled with self-identity and knowing who I was,” she says. “Even as a young person, I always felt like I didn’t quite belong in every room I was in. I also struggle with loneliness a bit.
“I always felt quite alone in a crowded room,” she continued, “like I was just one of a kind, like nobody ever really understood me. So I liked [playing] characters that people understood [and] people could relate to because I felt like no one could relate to Millie.”
Our girl is a legend, and we appreciate her candour.