Millie Bobby Brown covers the September issue of Allure. The editorial isn’t great, but it is youthful and fun, if that makes sense. I understand why they would do something lighter and silly with MBB – I think there’s too much of an urge to treat her as a mature woman as opposed to an 18-year-old who has already dealt with more than her fair share of bullsh-t. MBB splits her time between her home in England and her work-home in Atlanta. She’s making money, she’s got a production company, she’s got a beauty-brand side business and she sounds like she’s in a pretty good place in her life.
On deciding to become a child actor: “My parents were like, ‘Well, it is a job. And if you commit to it, you have to commit to it. You can’t audition and then give up.’ So I was like, ‘I don’t care. Whatever it takes, I want to act.’”
She loved working so much as a kid: “I enjoyed being different people because I always struggled with self-identity and knowing who I was. 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, 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.”
At the age of 10, she was told that she was “too mature” to make it as an actress: “I always knew that I was mature and I couldn’t really help that. Going back to what I said earlier about being kind of very lonely in who I was and feeling like no one was quite like me in school and no one was as mature as I was, [hearing that] was really hard because I thought [maturity] was a good thing. And then being told that it wasn’t, that I wouldn’t make it in this industry, it was so hurtful. I got really down about that.”
Her beauty brand, Florence by Mills: “I don’t know anything about beauty and skin care. That’s why I created this. I’m going to take you on this journey with me, so we can learn more about botanicals, serums, fruit and vegetable extracts, enzymes. Things that are so important for your skin, but we don’t know about because we’re young. Everything’s antiaging, everything is depuffing. We don’t know what that means. I need to know more. And I know our generation needs to know more.”
She deleted all of her social media apps: Now Millie only speaks directly to fans via blog posts that read like diary entries on the Florence by Mills website. It works because, as she says, “Nobody can comment.”
She walked away from an “unhealthy situation” with TikTok star Hunter Ecimovic in January 2021: “I felt very vulnerable. Also, no one on the set knew I was going through this. So it was kind of nice to be able to just deal with that myself and no one else knew. Then it was harder when the whole world knew…”
After Ecimovic was disgusting about her online “It was a year of healing. When you get publicly humiliated this way, I felt so out of control and powerless. Walking away and knowing that I’m worth everything and this person didn’t take anything from me, it felt very empowering. It felt like my life had finally turned a page and that I actually had ended a chapter that felt so f–king long. Ultimately, all I wanted to do within my career is help young girls and young people out there know that I, too, go through things. I’m not this perfect person that is selling skin-care products and [who is] in Stranger Things. I absolutely have made wrong decisions.”
She IS shockingly mature. Older people might call her an “old soul” or “old before her time.” Just the way she speaks of a toxic relationship that exploded online with millions of people watching… I wouldn’t have that grace and healing and I’m more than twice her age. And to understand that yes, you can make some mistakes and date some f–king douchebags and you can survive and thrive. She shouldn’t have gone through all of that at what? The age of 16/17. The sad fact is that she’s so mature because she had to be this mature and handle her own sh-t, because the adults around her weren’t protecting her.
Cover and IG courtesy of Allure.
The irony of me commenting this on a commentary site is not lost on me but I think her decision to only communicate with fans via a medium that does not allow comments is incredibly wise. Social media batshittery can be off the charts and very hard to disengage from.
So true.
IMO, there’s a big difference between accessibility when you’re talking about a social media platform versus an individual site. I often make jokes on Discord or Tumble about celebrities that I’d never make on Instagram or Twitter where there’s a actual likelihood of them seeing it versus having to seek it out themselves.
I agree. She’s not mature but was a child actor with a work ethic and stage parents. And frankly going through a shitty relationship with an asshole ‘bad boy’ is absolutely normal at 16/17?!
Of course the part where it plays out in public is new but the social media part of the drama is absolutely on point for this generation. So yeah, she went through a lot – but nothing any girl her age hasn’t been through or will go through. Probably several times in her lifetime.
I really hope she settles into herself and am looking foward to seeing who she will become as an actress and a woman.
I hope Bon Jovi’s son is a nice boyfriend because she has been with several horrible douchebags. I’m glad she learned better how to protect herself because her parents never did a very good job.
Exactly: no one is/was protecting her.
It’s well known her parents moved to LA for her career, & that she supported them financially.
Good luck to her, she seems a nice kid & I hope she’s got some adults who look out for her.
Yeah wtf ‘you can’t audition and then give up’ How old was she? And she wasn’t allowed to ever change her mind? Meanwhile I’m over here agonizing about whether to make my kid stay in the 2 month soccer team he joined but hated after 1 practice.
This right here. I balked reading it. I’ve always been put off by her parents and this confirmed why. Gross.
I was struck by that comment too.
Why couldn’t she give up if she didn’t like it anymore?
Also, how much choice do you have in actually getting a role when an industry is THAT competitive? Ultimately someone else decides whether you get that part (sometimes for reasons that don’t totally make sense), and if she hadn’t been chosen for anything, it wouldn’t be so bad to move onto something else where she might have more agency.
MB is very talented and quite bright. I am grateful I never had anything to do with social. That shit is toxic for regular people, nevermind famous children/teens. Good for her.
You all need to watch Enola Holmes on Netflix, in which she plays the lead as the sister to Sherlock Holmes, who is played by Henry Cavill. I love Henry Cavill. Did you know he can speak 9 different languages? And in the show, she is the smarter of the two. 🙂
You all need to watch her in Enola Holmes on Netflix, in which she plays the lead as the sister to Sherlock Holmes, and the smarter of the two. Sherlock is played, very well and humorously, by Henry Cavill. I love Henry Cavill. Did you know he can speak 9 languages? 🙂
I was called an old soul as a kid and young adult. My therapist says that can put a lot of pressure on kids to be more mature; maybe they were required to be more mature, or they feel ongoing pressure to behave older than they actually are. To know the answers to life – to be wise – to give adults advice.
But then you get older. What then? Suddenly older isn’t quite the same compliment. Oh, she’s still a young soul! She’s young at heart! She looks so young for her age!
I know I missed most of the fun parts of college and my early-mid 20s because I was in relationships far too long, one with a much older man. I didn’t need to go through those maturation processes; I’d always been older and mature for my age.
I thought being an old soul meant I was different – special – that maturity at an early age was good.
Now I wish that, throughout my childhood, I’d just been treated as a regular kid.
Thank you for saying this. My daughter sometimes is referred to in this way by adults and I always correct them because she is a CHILD. And while I do want her to be a responsible person she still deserves to enjoy being a child. She’s articulate, intelligent, and PAINFULLY naive. Which she covers well by being articulate and intelligent.