What Matilda’s actress has been up to, as she reveals the vile reason she quit Hollywood at 12

In a new interview, former child star Mara Wilson admitted to experiencing trauma just a few years after filming the iconic Matilda.

In the ’90s, Mara Wilson was set to be the next big thing after appearing in Mrs Doubtfire, Miracle on 34th Street, A Simple Wish, and, of course, Matilda. Despite that, she took a step back from Hollywood after those massive leading roles.

In a new interview with Channel 4, she explained:  “The summer I turned 12 years old I decided to look myself up on the internet. And I spent the next 25 years or so — I mean, honestly more than that, still to this day — wishing that I had never done it.”

@c4news

‘I could not stop crying… It may have been one of the factors that led me to not want to act anymore.’ Actress and child star Mara Wilson opened up about how fake child sexual abuse material made of her after starring in big films like Matilda made her feel ‘incredibly devastated’ and warns that AI can make what happened to her ‘happen to any woman or child.’ #Hollywood #AI #Matilda #Film #C4News

♬ original sound – Channel 4 News

On an undisclosed forum site, Mara found images of herself being sexually abused. People had used footage from films, where she was as little as five years old, to create the renderings.

“Now, I was 12 years old. Obviously, there was nothing like that out there about me. I had never [even] been kissed,” she added. “Most of the pictures of me out in the public eye were of me from ages five to nine … They were using images of me as a prepubescent child.”

Mara admitted to feeling “ashamed” as she couldn’t stop crying after discovering the images. She tried to “hide” from it, and it contributed to her decision to leave the world of acting.

What has Mara Wilson been in since Matilda?

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A post shared by Mara Wilson (@marawilson)

After Matilda, which came out in 1996, Mara Wilson went on to film a number of smaller projects like Balloon Farm, Thomas and the Magic Railroad, and Batman Beyond.

She dipped back into TV in the late 2010’s, working on Broad City, Big Hero 6: The Series, and BoJack Horseman.

She now does a lot of voice work

It’s truly tragic that gross men pushed Mara away from the world of acting, but she has done a lot of work in the voice acting space since.

Mara is clearly a fan of internet shows, having worked on a number of podcasts and animations like Helluva Boss and Fairy Godmother. She’s also got a solid bank of narration work, lending her vocal talents to over 24 books.

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Mara Wilson has done tons of charity work

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A post shared by Mara Wilson (@marawilson)

Outside of acting and voice acting, Mara Wilson has worked on a number of charitable endeavours.

The former child star collaborated with Project UROK, a nonprofit organisation aiming to aid teens with mental illness, and various organisations supporting people with endometriosis and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, both of which she has.

The icon came out in 2016!

Bi. But yeah https://t.co/VkGVNMKf4B

— Mara Wilson (@MaraWilson) June 14, 2016

In the aftermath of the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, Mara came out as bisexual in 2016.

“I haven’t been to one since college, except once when a friend brought me along. I didn’t feel like I belonged there. But the LGBTQ community has always felt like home, especially a few years later when I, uh, learned something about myself. So thank you,” she wrote on Twitter at the time, correcting someone who said she was gay.

She’s been a champion of other women

Over the last decade, and using her own experiences, Mara Wilson defended other female celebrities from harmful narratives. In one opinion piece for ELLE, she hit back at people sexualising a 13-year-old Millie Bobby Brown in Stranger Things.

Later, in a 2021 article for The New York Times, Mara talked about the parallels between her own life as a child star and Britney Spears’.

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Featured image credit: Channel 4 and TriStar Pictures