July 14, 2026, 4:41 p.m. ET
Millie Bobby Brown is calling out the double standards she grew up with in the “Stranger Things” spotlight.
In a new interview, the 22-year-old “Enola Holmes 3” actress opined about the impact “public perception” had on her teen years and shared she believes the “scrutiny and pressure” she experienced was far greater than what her male costars faced.
“Women don’t win because we don’t get to win. We don’t get to just be in peace. It’s crazy scrutiny,” she said on the July 13 episode of the “On Purpose with Jay Shetty” podcast.
“I grew up on a show with four boys. I’m not taking away their experience – they got their fair share of things – but what the girls got on that show, what felt my experience as well, was the scrutiny and pressure that gets put on you was insane,” she continued.
“I never heard [commentary] about any of my cast members, boys slash men, about what they’re wearing on the carpet and what they look like or what their hair looks like or what their makeup looks like or what they’re saying. Those weren’t the headlines.”
She said she believes they received more favorable headlines that focused on their careers rather than their appearances, and agreed they “are amazing” and deserved such praise.
“But I do, too,” Brown said. “My headline shouldn’t be tearing me down – and other young girls down. I get very annoyed about it because I just feel very protective over girls that are coming up into the industry.”
Later in the interview, she acknowledged, “I do hold a bit of a resentment” because “I don’t feel I received the same treatment.” But she reassured Shetty, “It’s not a pity party.”
Brown’s fellow “Stranger Things” child stars included Finn Wolfhard, 23; Gaten Matarazzo, 23; Caleb McLaughlin, 24; Natalia Dyer, 31; and Noah Schnapp, 21. Sadie Sink, 24, and Priah Ferguson, 19, joined the cast in Season 2.
At 15, Millie Bobby Brown was called ‘a 60-year-old woman’
Brown, who has said her legal name is now Millie Bonnie Bongiovi after marrying Jake Bongiovi in 2024, detailed some of the comments she received about her appearance as a child star.
“I just hit a point where I was like, ‘I really don’t care. I think I was 15 when people started saying I looked like a 60-year-old woman and [questioned] what am I wearing,” Brown shared.
“I would wear a big heel and people would say, ‘My goodness who does she think she is?’ But then I would wear a suit and people would rip me apart for looking too old,” she added. “I’ve realized, you’re just all just walking contradictions. None of you actually have an opinion. And when I realized that, I was like, ‘You’re all kind of like robots.'”
Brown went on to delete social media apps from her phone after “I had a pretty big thing happen to me when I was 17.” She did not detail the incident, but in the past she has spoken about feeling “publicly humiliated” by an ex who spoke about their relationship in graphic detail and made various accusations against her.
“Public perception I could’ve gone without, but then again it’s also made me who I am today,” the actress mused. ”Because now I feel like it’s almost like my life’s mission to protect young people in the industry from that in any way I can.”
