Eighties icon Molly Ringwald has said she was never cut out for fame in the way today’s stars are.
Ringwald, 55, started her career as a child actress in the late 1970s in a national stage production of musical Annie before going on to star in 1980s cult classics such as Sixteen Candles and The Breakfast Club.
However, she has admitted she was “not comfortable” in the spotlight, and eventually had to step away.
“Some people are really good at it,”she told The Guardian. “Taylor Swift is amazing! But I didn’t feel comfortable with that level of stardom.”
By the late 80s, the star became the poster child of the ideal teenage girl in the US which, she said, was a heavy burden.
She explained: “It’s hard to grow up under that. I don’t want to overdo this and boohoo. I fully recognise my privilege, but I needed to get out from under all that scrutiny.
“I just wasn’t cut out for it in a way that certain other people are.”
The actress also addressed the the #MeToo movement and the Harvey Weinstein scandal.
“I don’t think a Harvey Weinstein situation could exist now,” she said.
“But, again, a lot of people have gotten swept up in ‘cancellation’, and I worry about that; it’s unsustainable, in a way.
“Some people have been unfairly cancelled and they don’t belong in the same category as somebody like Harvey Weinstein. What it ends up doing is make people roll their eyes. That’s my worry.”
Ringwald, who fled to Paris in the 90s before returning to the US in 2003, continued: “I do want things to change, for real. Workplaces should be places where everyone can feel safe – not just in Hollywood, but everywhere.
“Particularly Americans. We can never do things incrementally - we’re so binary, so all or nothing. We’re basically a bunch of puritans.”
