Content warning: This story contains mentions of child sex abuse.
Mara Wilson can attest to the quiet brutality of child stardom.
The former child star known for her work in iconic ‘90s films such as Matilda, Mrs. Doubtfire, and Miracle on 34th Street partially credits a disturbing discovery she made online as a pre-teen with her decision to step away from Hollywood.
In an interview with the U.K.’s Channel 4 News, a teary-eyed Wilson revealed she was only 12 years old when, while searching her name online in the early 2000s, she found fake child sex abuse materials of herself on a web forum.
“The summer I turned 12 years old I decided to look myself up on the internet. And I spent the next 25 years or so — I mean, honestly more than that, still to this day — wishing that I had never done it,” she shared.
The actress revealed she found “people on a forum saying that they had images of me nude and having sex.”
“Now, I was 12 years old. Obviously, there was nothing like that out there about me. I had never [even] been kissed,” Wilson said, clarifying that the distressing fake images showed her as a young child. “Most of the pictures of me out in the public eye were of me from ages 5 to 9 … They were using images of me as a prepubescent child.”
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The moment left a tragic mark on the young star, who had already been feeling the pressures of child stardom and was still grieving the death of her mother, who had passed away from breast cancer just before the release of Matilda in 1996.
“I was incredibly devastated. I could not stop crying. I felt ashamed, I kind of tried to hide. And I think it may have been one of the factors that led me to not want to act anymore,” Wilson shared.
This isn’t the first time Wilson has opened up about her experience being sexualized as a child in the spotlight. In a 2021 op-ed for The New York Times, Wilson wrote, “People had been asking me, ‘Do you have a boyfriend?’ interviews since I was 6. Reporters asked me who I thought the sexiest actor was and about Hugh Grant’s arrest for soliciting a prostitute.”
Though she has largely stepped away from appearing on screen in Hollywood, Wilson still works in the entertainment industry today, writing and appearing on podcasts, web shows, and in documentaries, as well as doing voiceover work for shows such as BoJack Horseman and Big Hero 6: The Series.
If you or someone you know has been the victim of child abuse, please contact the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 800-422-4453. You can also report child sex abuse crimes to the FBI via the Child Exploitation Notification System.
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