Actress Zendaya says she had to learn to “protect” herself as a child star.
The 27-year-old actress rose to fame in her early teens when she was cast opposite Bella Thorne in the Disney Channel sitcom ‘Shake It Up’.
In later years, she progressed to a glamorous Hollywood career, but admitted that she sometimes wishes she could have stayed a normal child “a little longer”, recalling feeling very “vulnerable” at a young age, reports ‘Female First UK ‘.
Speaking on YouTube’s PayOrWait series, she said: “It’s a lesson you have to learn as young people. I was a kid thrown into a very grown-up industry where if you have a perspective or something to say, it’s like, ‘Well, they’re a kid.’ And parents… it’s like… they’re just parents, so you have to learn quickly how to protect yourself.”
“For me, it was a lesson I learned pretty early on—back in the Disney days—about little tricks and little things I could do to protect myself, protect my peace of mind or my happiness.
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I think when you’re a kid in this industry, you’re very vulnerable. I wish I could have been a kid a little longer, but yes, the lessons came very soon. I don’t know if there was a specific moment, but it definitely happened quite young when I had to kind of learn to have my own back.”
However, the actress recalled having a teacher on set during her time at Disney Channel who she said put the child’s well-being above all else, and said it might be a “surprise” to learn that someone like that is quite uncommon in the US. industry.
She said: “I had an amazing teacher on set who was very adamant about safety and breaks and time and stuff… she’s like an auntie to me now.
Shout out to Monique. She became my family, but she was someone who was just advocating for the kid, saying, “They need to take a break,” or “This is too dangerous, I don’t want them to do that,” or “They have school. !’. You’d be surprised how this isn’t common practice in the industry.”
