The actress, who rose to fame as a preteen in movies such asMrs.
“Fortunately people are becoming aware of what we did to Ms. Spears and starting to apologize to her.
But we’re still living with the scars.”
Amy Sussman/Getty Images
“I knew that I had money put away for me, and it was mine.
If I needed to escape the public eye, I vanished safe at home or school.”
“People need space, time and care to deal with those things.
She had none of that.”
She says that much care went into her image at the time to try and prevent that from happening.
“I never appeared in anything more revealing than a knee-length sundress,” she says.
“This was all intentional: My parents thought I would be safer that way.”
Unfortunately, this didn’t deter the media.
“People had been asking me, ‘Do you have a boyfriend?’
in interviews since I was 6,” writes Wilson.
It was cute when 10-year-olds sent me letters saying they were in love with me.
It was not when 50-year-old men did.
Every time, I felt ashamed."
“A big part of The Narrative is the assumption that famous kids deserve it.
They asked for this by becoming famous and entitled, so it’s fine to attack them.”
Read Wilson’s full essay atThe New York Times.
