Georgina NoackImagine being 13 years old and being stalked back to your house by a grown adult. That was the reality Finn Wolfhard faced when Stranger Things first came out.
In an interview with Mastermind Magazine, Finn – who is now 17 – spoke about some of the strange (and downright scary) situations he’s been put in. Most of them with people who are almost decades his senior.
One of the earliest – right after Stranger Things had taken the world by storm – was, arguably, one of the creepiest.
“When I was thirteen, some adults followed me back to my condo when I was shooting It. Stranger Things had just come out, and I was by myself. As I walked faster, they walked faster, and I was getting a bit antsy by the time I got to the door. Suddenly, they were like, ‘Hey, dude, can we get a selfie?’ And I was like, ‘No you can’t have a selfie! How about don’t follow children?’”
How messed up is that?
And that’s not the worst of it. Finn has been followed in a taxi (by another person in a taxi) who “continued to be pretty relentless” after getting out.
But the pandemonium isn’t reserved just for fans of his acting. He’s a musician, and says he has had to stop shows because of the mayhem (and danger) his fans cause.
“I’ve had to stop shows because people were getting crushed, and Ryan Reynolds almost got injured in Brazil when he went to the barricade. It was lucky that the hundred people who fell over it weren’t hurt.”
I understand being a die-hard fan (trust me, I know), but all of this pandemonium seems a bit extreme. Especially when lives are being put in danger.
And whether any of this was happening yesterday, or four years ago, let’s not forget that Finn is a child. By legal definitions, he is not an adult yet. Even if he was an ‘adult’, it’s still bloody creepy. But he was a child when all of this stalking was going on. Absolute madness.
For the most part, the Stranger Things kids have handled growing up in the harsh global media spotlight like champs. I couldn’t imagine going through the horrors of tweendom and puberty without the privacy and obscurity afforded by my own irrelevancy. Thank goodness for being talentless.
But that doesn’t mean they are immune to the side effects of fame – obviously not, Finn is getting stalked.
And if you, a grown adult (or even not ‘legally’ of age yet), start to feel the urge to stalk a child star, please don’t. It’s creepy and gross. And I’m pretty sure, no matter what your age, is illegal. So don’t do it.
Image Source: GIPHY (@strangerthings), Twitter (Finn Wolfhard Updates)
