25 Former Female Child Stars Who Exposed The Dark Reality Of Hollywood

15. Natalie Portman

Natalie Portman started her acting career at just 12 years old, quickly becoming a household name with her breakthrough role in Léon: The Professional and later starring in the 1990s Star Wars prequels. But fame came with a troubling side as the actress faced early objectification and was seen as a “L*lita” figure in the industry. In a 2020 episode of Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast, Portman opened up about how this impacted her sense of self. She shared, “Being s*xualized as a child, I think, took away from my own s*xuality because it made me afraid. It made me feel like how I could be safe was to be like, ‘I’m conservative and I’m serious and you should respect me and I’m smart and don’t look at me that way.’” She described building “fortresses” around herself, realizing that respect was tied to being perceived as off-limits. Portman also discussed the complicated messages girls receive about their identity from a society that tells them, “You’re supposed to want that… people finding you attractive or people thinking you’re s*xy… but you don’t feel safe necessarily when there’s older men that are interested.” Later, in a 2025 interview with The Interview magazine, she described enduring a “long L*lita phase” as a child actor and noted how being inappropriately adultized on screen left her feeling scared. Throughout her career, Portman said she has been placed into various industry “tropes” assigned to female actors at each stage of their careers, from the L*lita phase to the “chick who helps the guy realize his emotional thing.” She credited her mother for constant protection as a child and revealed that when she went to college, her father shifted the focus toward independence. She recalled, “Okay, that was cute. Time to move on. Let’s find another job – a real job.” Despite the pressures of early fame and the inappropriate attention she endured, Portman pursued a degree in psychology at Harvard while continuing her acting career.