Actress Dakota Fanning recalls being in awkward situations as a child while promoting TV and film projects she co-starred in and at least one fame expert isn’t surprised.
“I wasn’t a woman yet; I was a kid,” Fanning said. “Now, being a woman, there are more conversations about equality and just basic treatment.”
A tabloid girl is someone famous and glamorous who appears on the cover of gossip magazines such as US Weekly, People, Star, and In Touch Weekly.
Hollywood is an intricate setting, and journalists are not immune to that critique, according to celebrity brand consultant Gary Frayter.
“Kids shouldn’t be touching on topics like relationships, love interests, or other subjects they aren’t emotionally equipped to handle,” Frayter told The Epoch Times.
Fanning’s first breakout role was in 2001 when she was 7 years old, opposite actor Sean Penn in “I am Sam.” A Screen Actors Guild (SAG) award nomination followed.
“I’ve definitely felt this kind of vibe from people almost wanting me to fail or something,” Fanning said. “It makes you feel a little bit guarded. I’m just living my life over here. I think also I was just a little too young for it to fully hit me. So that was good.”
The Georgia native was subsequently cast in “Uptown Girls” along with now-deceased actress Brittany Murphy, who died of pneumonia and multiple drug intoxication in 2009. Fanning then played a teen vampire in the “Twilight” series.
Despite experiencing stardom at an early age, Fanning did not become a fallen child actress like so many others who came before her. For that, she credits her mother.
“I just didn’t fall into it, and I don’t know the exact reasons except that my family is comprised of very nice, kind, protective people,” she said. “I have a mother who taught me how to treat other people and also how to treat myself. And she was there every second.”
Frayter, who is a celebrity podcast host and social media consultant, said it’s very important for parents to monitor their children when they are working in show business.
“Hollywood environments are filled with dangerous influences like drugs and alcohol, and child actors with their money and fame have easy access,” he added. “With nothing to ground them, young actors are left to spiral in a culture obsessed with fame and indulgence.”
Fanning said she and her parents were very aware, at the time, of what happens to unprotected child actors.
“I never let public perception or any of that stuff really influence the choices that I made, and I just tried to stay true to myself,” Fanning said. “I’m pretty proud of my past self.”
Although Fanning and her sister, Elle Fanning, were never portrayed in the press in the same way that Paris Hilton was, they recently acquired the exclusive rights to Hilton’s memoir and are working on its film adaptation. Hilton is the great-granddaughter of Conrad Hilton, who founded Hilton Hotels.
“I have a lot of compassion for people who have been made into examples,” Fanning said. “If society and the media hadn’t played their part, who knows? I don’t think that it’s necessarily connected a hundred percent to being in this business; there are other factors, too.”
Hilton starred in the Fox reality series “The Simple Life” with Nicole Richie from 2003 to 2007. She writes in her memoir that the media often reported on her life in an untrue, exaggerated, or invented way,
“My sister and I are both excited about it and getting to know Paris in a very real way,” Fanning said. “It’s so wild because we grew up in her heyday—which, I mean, has she ever really not had a heyday? We’re still living in it; she’s an icon who has endured the test of time.”
Hilton also alleges she was sexually abused, drugged, and psychologically manipulated in a boarding school in Utah.
Fanning recently starred in the TV miniseries “The Perfect Couple” with actors Liev Schreiber and Nicole Kidman as well as in “Ripley,” which is about a grifter living in New York during the 1960s who is hired by a wealthy man to bring his vagabond son home from Italy. “The Perfect Couple” is about an entire family becoming murder suspects just hours before a lavish wedding in Nantucket Harbor.
“If you look back to the early 2000s, if you pick up an US Weekly from then, it’s crazy the way it was totally normal then to discuss someone’s cellulite,” Fanning added. “It was outrageous then, obviously, but now it’s just unacceptable, so I’m happy that doesn’t happen as much anymore.”
Dakota Fanning did not respond to requests for comment.
