Millie Bobby Brown Got Real About Being "Humiliated" By This TikToker
Their “unhealthy situation” is part of why she's retreated from social media.
In a new interview for Allure’s September 2022 issue, Millie Bobby Brown reflected on her dynamic with TikToker Hunter Ecimovic. Brown said they were in an “unhealthy situation,” which she stepped away from in January 2021. Over the summer of 2021, Ecimovic took to Instagram Live to claim to have “groomed” the Stranger Things star after photos of them together surfaced (according to several reports, Brown was 16 and Ecimovic was 20 at the time) online. Now, Brown has called her involvement with Ecimovic a “blip” and spoke about the humiliation she experienced. (Elite Daily reached out to Ecimovic for comment, but did not hear back in time for publication.)
“It was a year of healing,” Brown told Allure. “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.”
Brown’s team released a statement condemning his claims in July 2021. “Mr. Ecimovic's remarks on social media are not only dishonest, but also are irresponsible, offensive and hateful,” her reps stated, per E! News. “Instead of engaging in a public discourse with him through the press or on social media, we are taking action to ensure that he stops this behavior once and for all.”
According to Allure writer Emily Zemler, Brown channeled the unhealthy experience into her recent performance in Stranger Things. In Season 4, her character Eleven physically battled both a new villain named Vecna (also known as Henry Creel) and her manipulative father figure, Dr. Brenner. During filming for the show, Brown revealed that no one on set knew how much the prior fallout with Ecimovic was taking a toll on her. To her, dealing with the aftermath of the situation was “kind of nice,” but it became increasingly harder to handle once “the world knew” about the controversy.
“It felt like my life had finally turned a page and that I actually had ended a chapter that felt so f*cking long,” she told Allure, adding that her ultimate career goal was to help young people understand that she also goes through tough situations. “I’m not this perfect person that is selling skin-care products and [who is] in Stranger Things. I absolutely have made wrong decisions.”
Now, the 18-year-old actor is now dating Jake Bongiovi, AKA, Jon Bon Jovi’s second-youngest son. Their sweet relationship dates back to the summer of 2021, where the duo was spotted on each other’s social medias before elevating to red carpet events.
Elsewhere in the cover story, Brown also spoke about her tumultuous relationship with social media. She explained that since catapulting to fame status with her time on Stranger Things, she began to receive threats and disturbingly sexualized messages from adult men. The harmful comments prompted her to delete her TikTok and Twitter accounts last year.
“It’s really hard to be hated on when you don’t know who you are yet,” Brown said. “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?’”
Now, per Allure, someone else on her team monitors and upload her posts on Facebook and Instagram, which are the only social platforms she hasn’t deleted from her phone. Brown isn’t completely off of social media, however. She revealed that she keeps in contact with her fans by sending them messages through the website for Florence by Mills, the beauty brand she launched in 2019.
According to Seventeen, under the “Blogs” subsection on the official site, the young actor launched a column called “Mills Musings,” where she offers skincare hacks and mantras.
She also told Allure that through the help of her family and friends, she understood how important it was to stay true to herself. “[My family] 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,” Brown said in the interview.
It’s heartwarming to know that Brown is surrounded by a supportive group of people while on her journey of healing.
This article was originally published on
