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Millie Bobby Brown, the rising star that started as 11 from Stranger Things, might have grown up saving Hawkins from monsters, but off-screen, life was far more complicated. Becoming a global star at 11 sounds like a dream — until you realize what gets left behind when childhood is traded for fame. In her Vanity Fair interview, Brown reflected on what it really meant to grow up on the set of Stranger Things. The social skills she never learned, the friendships she couldn’t build — and the bubble that felt safe until it didn’t.
Childhood without cafeterias or cliques—Living "inside" Stranger Things
Brown described her experience as anything but typical. While other kids were passing notes in class and figuring out lunchroom politics, she was being homeschooled on set. There were no school dances, no Friday-night hangouts, no awkward teenage rites of passage. For Brown, life revolved around private tutors and filming schedules, leaving her with little time — and even fewer opportunities — to experience what most kids her age saw as normal.
She explained how that left her feeling disconnected from people of her own age. Friendships were not natural; even when she tried, she found it difficult to empathize. Her co-stars grew to be a sort of second family, yet their bubble was both reassuring and constrictive. Between breaks, they swapped inside jokes, engaged in games, and created their own universe—but that universe stayed very close to the set.
Then the pandemic hit, and whatever thin connection she had to the outside world vanished entirely. Filming paused, but the isolation grew deeper. Brown acknowledged how that time magnified what she’d been missing all along. Her career might have soared during those years, but her social life remained practically non-existent. It was recognizing she had never actually ventured outside the bubble closing in rather than just that.
Fame’s harsh lessons
For Brown, the bubble wasn’t just social — it was also emotional armor. She shared how early fame taught her to guard her privacy and keep people at a distance. The media, she said, was relentless from the start. At an age when most kids are figuring out who they are, Brown was already a public figure, and the world had opinions about everything she did. From the way she looked to how she spoke, every move was dissected and criticized.
That scrutiny forced her to grow up faster than most. Brown said she learned to be highly selective about who she lets into her life, building walls not out of choice, but as a way to protect herself. Over the years, her circle became smaller and more carefully curated. She said, trust is something she offers rarely; it's a survival tactic acquired the hard way.
It is not entirely caution and retreat, though. Brown underlined that her path now revolves heavily on her advocacy for herself. Though being a celebrity taught her to be cautious, it also offered her the means to recover her story on her own terms.
The bittersweet goodbye to Stranger Things
Now that Stranger Things has wrapped its final season, which is soon to debut, Brown admitted that saying goodbye wasn’t as simple as closing a chapter. In a heartfelt message to her castmates, she compared the end of the show to a graduation she wasn’t quite ready for. Her castmates weren’t just co-workers — they were her family, the closest thing she had to a consistent, stable part of her life.
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She described how emotional it was to walk away from that chapter, knowing that it shaped so much of who she is. While most kids move on from high school with scrapbooks and yearbooks, Brown’s memories are tied to soundstages and press tours, the lines between work and life forever blurred.
Still, she’s not one to dwell on what’s lost. Brown is stepping into her next chapter with a sense of clarity she didn’t have before. She’s not chasing a version of “normal” that never existed for her. Instead, she’s focused on building something new — something entirely her own.
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