TMC
06-20-2023, 06:32 AM
To Her 18th Birthday As She Reflected On Being “An Object Of Desire” As A Child Actor
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/boy-meets-world-star-danielle-132450949.html?.tsrc=fp_deeplink
Now 42, Danielle admitted that she’d only recently processed how being sexualized as a child had affected her growing up, before going on to recall some of the “creepy” experiences she’d had with older men while on set.
As a child, Danielle didn’t realize that what was being said to her was inappropriate, but in hindsight she now knows that it was “absolutely wrong.”
“As a kid, I always wanted to be older,” she began. “I wanted to be an adult, I wanted to be seen as an adult, so getting adult male attention as a teenage girl… I didn’t think of it as being creepy or weird.”
“It felt like validation that I was mature and I was an adult and I was capable,” Danielle went on. “And that they were seeing me the way I was, not for the number on a page. And in hindsight, that is absolutely wrong.”
“I’ve always been able to hold a conversation with an adult. I can look you in the eye, I’ve always been those things,” she said after Rider agreed that she was very mature and confident from a young age. “But in a romantic, male gaze sense I should not have been outwardly talked about at 14, 15, 16 years old.”
“Even directly to me, I had people tell me they had my 18th birthday on their calendar,” Danielle added. “I had a male executive, I did a calendar at 16, and he specifically told me he had a certain calendar month in his bedroom. And at the time, my first thought was a little bit like …oh… but the immediate thought after that was: ‘Yes, because we are peers and this is how you relate to peers.’”
Reflecting on the long term impact that childhood fame had on her, Danielle said that it made her bad at setting boundaries because she was worried that people would think that she thought she was “too good for them” if she held “expectations” of how she should be treated and spoken to.
“I didn’t want anyone to think that I thought I was better than them or that they were not good enough for me,” she explained, before revealing that she didn’t start to work on this issue until her late 30s.
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/boy-meets-world-star-danielle-132450949.html?.tsrc=fp_deeplink
Now 42, Danielle admitted that she’d only recently processed how being sexualized as a child had affected her growing up, before going on to recall some of the “creepy” experiences she’d had with older men while on set.
As a child, Danielle didn’t realize that what was being said to her was inappropriate, but in hindsight she now knows that it was “absolutely wrong.”
“As a kid, I always wanted to be older,” she began. “I wanted to be an adult, I wanted to be seen as an adult, so getting adult male attention as a teenage girl… I didn’t think of it as being creepy or weird.”
“It felt like validation that I was mature and I was an adult and I was capable,” Danielle went on. “And that they were seeing me the way I was, not for the number on a page. And in hindsight, that is absolutely wrong.”
“I’ve always been able to hold a conversation with an adult. I can look you in the eye, I’ve always been those things,” she said after Rider agreed that she was very mature and confident from a young age. “But in a romantic, male gaze sense I should not have been outwardly talked about at 14, 15, 16 years old.”
“Even directly to me, I had people tell me they had my 18th birthday on their calendar,” Danielle added. “I had a male executive, I did a calendar at 16, and he specifically told me he had a certain calendar month in his bedroom. And at the time, my first thought was a little bit like …oh… but the immediate thought after that was: ‘Yes, because we are peers and this is how you relate to peers.’”
Reflecting on the long term impact that childhood fame had on her, Danielle said that it made her bad at setting boundaries because she was worried that people would think that she thought she was “too good for them” if she held “expectations” of how she should be treated and spoken to.
“I didn’t want anyone to think that I thought I was better than them or that they were not good enough for me,” she explained, before revealing that she didn’t start to work on this issue until her late 30s.