Natalie Portman shares traumatic experience of being sexualized as a young actor

Natalie Portman is an accomplished Hollywood star who started out at a young age of 12. She has given unforgettable performances in movies like Black Swan, Annihilation, and Leon: The Professional.
The actress is all set for the release of her MCU movie, Thor: Love and Thunder, where she reappears as Jane Foster. Ahead of the release, Portman shared a word of advice. She talked about the dangers of being exposed to the dark side of the film industry — especially a traumatic experience for younger actors.

Natalie started her acting career when she was barely 12 years old, debuting in Luc Besson’s critically acclaimed film, Leon: the Professional. She worked alongside actors Gary Oldman and Jean Reno and gave a memorable performance. She got the role after beating 2000 applicants.

The movie went on to be a success, but Natalie was in for an unpleasant surprise when she got a r*pe fantasy as her first fan mail. Her “Lolita” image in the movie where she was dressed as Marlin Monroe and Madonna gave the audience enough fodder to attack her with vulgar and obnoxiously sexualized comments and threats to cover up or face consequences.

There were radio shows running a countdown to her 18th birthday when she would be legally eligible to sleep with and entitled men talking about her budding breasts.

Natalie addressed the Women March in 2018, where she revealed her disturbing experiences as a youngster in the industry. She shared how the excitement about her debut movie soon vanished, with fans sexualizing her image and making her feel unsafe.

There are many other stars who went through similar harrowing experiences of being sexualized as kids. The list includes the likes of Bobby brown, Britney Spears, Selena Gomez, Billie Eilish and Megan Fox, among others.