Well, this is a first. I am talking to Millie Bobby Brown, break-out star of the Netflix phenomenon Stranger Things, and I’m not allowed to ask her about it. “Until a fair deal is reached I’m not able to speak on anything,” the actress says diplomatically. It’s a strange time. In August, when Brown Zoom-calls me from a hotel in New York, Hollywood productions have been shut down owing to the industry strikes over fair pay. This means that hundreds of actors are unable to promote their on-screen projects. But Brown, 19 years old and one of the most famous teenagers in the world, has plenty more to say. As one of Netflix’s most valued talents, she has also starred in and produced its Enola Holmes films (playing Sherlock’s sister opposite Henry Cavill and Helena Bonham Carter) and started her own hugely successful Gen Z-inspired skincare and beauty range, Florence by Mills. Her current net worth is £11 million. Now she has written a novel, Nineteen Steps, which is out next month.
Based between England and America (Stranger Things is mostly shot in Atlanta), Brown is currently in New York with her fiancé, Jake Bongiovi, 21, an actor, model and the son of Jon Bon Jovi, “mostly to relax, unwind and go on dog walks”. As we speak she strikes me as the most mature teenager you could meet, talking articulately about the pitfalls of social media, the desire to direct and “explore all of my potential, dreams and aspirations. I think as a woman right now this is our prime time to do it.” Then she spends a few minutes looking at her ever-beeping phone and I remember that she really is a teenager after all.
She was just 12 when, in 2016, Stranger Things propelled her to worldwide fame. The sci-fi series, set in the 1980s, centres on four tweenage boys, one of whom is abducted into a terrifying parallel universe. The others, in their search for him, encounter a mute girl with a shaved head and psychokinetic powers, known only as Eleven (and played by Brown). A total of 8.2 million people watched it in its first 16 days. The fourth season, which aired last year, is Netflix’s third most-watched series of all time. Those who don’t watch the show may not fully grasp Brown’s power and influence. But ask anyone under 20 and they will probably say they idolise her. My editor’s nine-year-old daughter is “obsessed” with her, as are the 16-year-olds who live on my road and swear by her vegan beauty range, which they buy from Boots. She has 63 million Instagram followers and averages more than a million “likes” for anything she posts, from the water brand she’s flogging to the eyeliner tutorial she’s sharing. When she announced her engagement in April, the post got 13 million “likes” and its caption was a line from a Taylor Swift song. Brown knows her Gen Z audience and is bang on brand.
“The secret of Flo by Mills [named after Brown’s great-grandmother, Florence, whom she never met but wanted to honour] is authenticity,” she says. “I’m not just putting my face to it, it’s genuinely what I use and what I know my generation needs.” The brand launched its first fragrance, Wildly Me, this month, but she insists: “Our drive isn’t to make money, it’s to impact others’ lives.” Clearly she is expertly rehearsed in how to answer questions, to the point where I do wish she’d have a bit more of a laugh. But being a role model for teenagers all over the world is a serious matter and she handles it well.
Along with her success, Brown has been the victim of cyberbullying and has spoken of being “sexualised” by the public and media for most of her life. In seven years she has done what any teen would: had boyfriends, gone blonde and started to find her voice, except she did it in public. “You have to have good people around you,” she says, adding that she goes to bed at 9pm and spends her free time rescuing dogs, studying for a degree in human services (similar to social studies) and being an ambassador for Unicef. “I don’t think it’s good to have expectations of anyone,” she says of the immense pressure of being a role model. “It’s OK to change, to grow. I’m grateful that young girls use me as someone they are able to walk alongside, but if [we both] go in another direction, that’s OK too.”
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She credits her family and fiancé for keeping her grounded. “When things get overwhelming, they are the people I go to first,” she says. “I have a huge support unit and I think when you have friends who genuinely care about you it’s a huge help. I don’t have many industry friends at all, just Noah [Schnapp, her Stranger Things co-star and best friend] and some friends from college.”
She doesn’t have social media apps on her phone. “I’m not interested in what others are saying about me,” she says. “Until it becomes a positive environment for young people I don’t think I should have access to it so frequently.” She posts on Instagram when her team gives her access — “so my fans feel they have a direct line to me” — but doesn’t scroll mindlessly. “I feel completely happy in remaining detached from that world.”
Brown was born in Marbella, Spain. Her British parents, Robert and Kelly (the “Bobby” in her name is after her father) had moved over when Robert’s family bought a restaurant there, but brought Brown and her elder brother and sister back to Bournemouth when Brown was four. Kelly’s father had died and they wanted to be closer to her mother, Ruth, who lived in Bethnal Green. “Most of my childhood was going back and forth between Bournemouth and Bethnal Green,” she says. The family moved to Orlando when Brown was eight, where she caught the acting bug. They relocated to Los Angeles so she could pursue her passion. After three years of “getting no work”, however, they came back to the UK. It was here that she auditioned for Stranger Things.
Brown remained close to Ruth, her grandmother, until her death in 2020, and their relationship inspired Nineteen Steps. The young adult novel is set in 1940s war-immersed Bethnal Green and is about a young woman, Nellie, falling in love and dodging bombs. The title refers to the Bethnal Green Tube tragedy in 1943, in which 173 people were killed in a crush on the entrance steps to the station, an air-raid shelter. “My nan was 12 at the time,” she says. “She wasn’t part of that tragedy, but her best friend, Babs, lost her whole family from it.” Ruth would regale Brown as a child with stories of growing up during the Second World War, being evacuated to Cornwall with her brother, Billy, and having her first kiss standing on the rubble of a bombed-out house. It’s all in the book.
“I had trouble sleeping when I was younger,” she says. “My nan would stay up with me until 4 or 5am, tickling my arm and telling me what her childhood was like, and those stories impacted me so much. We’d go walking through Victoria Park, we’d visit the memorial [for the Tube tragedy] and walk down Roman Road, getting lunch, so these places are part of my childhood too. When she got diagnosed with dementia I was worried that we’d lose these stories.” Brown worked with a historical fiction writer to put her novel together. “I wanted to capture the strength of how my nan and her community got through those times,” she says. “These stories will remain so important and personal to me. I’m so glad I was able to translate them onto paper.”
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In her seven years of stardom Brown has befriended Mariah Carey and become an ambassador for Louis Vuitton, but the relationship I am desperate to explore is that with the former reality TV star Mark Wright and his wife, the actress Michelle Keegan. “I’m a huge fan of The Only Way Is Essex and I was doing press in LA, saw him and introduced myself. He told me he was a fan of my work too and our families bonded. Now we’re friends and go on family vacations together all the time.” Have they taken her to Sheesh, the Essex restaurant and haven for reality TV stars? “Yes, plenty of times.”
![“I’m definitely ready to wrap up [Stranger Things]. I’m ready to say goodbye to this chapter of my life and open new ones up”](https://www.thetimes.com/imageserver/image/%2Fmethode%2Ftimes%2Fprod%2Fweb%2Fbin%2Fdc92b1c4-a0b5-44b4-87f5-e2c15a334f21.jpg?crop=4523%2C5629%2C475%2C1625)
Then there’s the other significant relationship in her life. Brown and Bongiovi started dating in 2021, having met on Instagram. “I was interested in him and wanted to know more. As soon as we spoke I knew he was going to be a huge part of my life. I ran to my mum and said, ‘I really, really like him!’ After we met we knew we never wanted to leave each other’s side.” Brown knew instantly he was “the one”. “You can’t pinpoint why, it’s just the feeling of knowing that that’s the person you want to spend the rest of your time with. I think so much of life is overthinking. The one thing that made clear sense to me was him. So I didn’t really have to do much thinking.” She reveals that he proposed using one of her mother’s own rings. “I’ve always loved that ring, it’s always stuck out to me, so she gave it to Jake. They were in cahoots about the whole proposal. I love that I can always keep a piece of my mum with me.”
Your parents must be excited then, I say. “They are super-happy. My parents adore him. [Jake and I] both come from parents that have stayed together for a really long time. My parents were young when they got together, so I always had amazing role models for relationships.” What was it like meeting his dad? “His family are wonderful people who welcomed me with open arms,” she says coyly. “I’m really grateful to be a part of their world.” The couple haven’t set a wedding date yet and while she stresses that it’s “not about what I wear”, designers have been flocking to dress her and she admits she is “weighing up options”. I suggest she could merge their surnames — Millie Bobby Brownovi? “I definitely don’t think that’s it,” she laughs. “We are having those conversations [though] and they are important to me.”
The final series of Stranger Things will go out next year. “I’m definitely ready to wrap up. I’m ready to say goodbye to this chapter of my life and open new ones up,” she said earlier this year, before the strike kicked off. “It’s like graduating high school. You’re ready to go and blossom and flourish, and you’re grateful for the time you’ve had, but it’s time to create your own message and live your own life.” Brown has more films in development and acting remains her “No 1 passion”, but Florence by Mills and the publication of Nineteen Steps are keeping her busy for now. “I’m happy and content,” she says. “I take care of myself and have amazing people around me, and am constantly learning and willing to learn.” And, with that, the world’s most famous teenager clicks off.
Styling: Anya Ziourova
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March 1993
It was the first time Nellie had been back to Bethnal Green, her childhood home, in almost 50 years. The first time since the end of the war. As she stepped off the Tube train onto the platform and gazed around for signs to the exit, she was taken aback by how different it looked from the way she remembered it. The station had not been finished and the track not yet laid when the station was requisitioned as a public air raid shelter for the duration of the war. Now, people bustled past her as she stood clutching her suitcase, trying to imagine the thousands of triple bunk beds that had lined the tunnels when she was last here.
How many endless, anxious nights had she and her family spent down here during the Blitz? Too many. And then again, later in the war, there’d been so many more nights they’d had to take shelter from the frequent bombing raids above.
The train she’d been on pulled away, its wheels clattering against the track as it picked up speed, leaving Nellie on the platform surrounded by her memories.
They’d replaced the escalators, she noticed, as she stepped onto shiny steel instead of the wooden slatted treads of the old ones, dragging her wheeled suitcase onto the step behind her. A busker had set himself up at the bottom of the escalator, and was singing Bridge over Troubled Water, the music echoing up to her. As she rode the escalator, she sang along quietly, remembering how during the war she sometimes sang down here for her friends and family. She reached the ticket hall and thought of dear Billy, how his cheeks would dimple when he smiled at her. This was where she’d so often stopped for a quick word with him, promising her family she’d catch them up as they made their way to the bunks.
Once through the gates of the ticket barrier, she turned automatically to her left. Back then, there’d only been the one entrance and exit to the unfinished station. Now there was another to her right, but if she used that one, she worried she’d be disorientated when she reached street level. It was familiar yet different, advertising posters lined the walls and there was a vending machine instead of the shelter canteen.
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Her heart began to pound as she climbed the first seven steps to the half landing, then turned left and began making her way up the nineteen steps. Nineteen. They were much better lit these days, of course, with a central handrail that hadn’t been there before, but still they were the same nineteen steps. Memories of all those other hundreds of times she’d used these steps came flooding back as she climbed, making her eyes blur with tears and her stomach knot.
She needed to get herself out of the station, find the way to Barbara’s house, greet her old friend and have a cup of tea. Babs had written to her a few months earlier, urging her to consider coming back for the 50th anniversary memorial service. It had seemed like a good idea, but now here she was, after all these years, with everything in front of her.
A crowd of young people, university students, she guessed, suddenly came charging down the steps towards her. She moved to her right, flattening herself against the wall. Her breath was coming in short, urgent gasps, her heart racing furiously, and she knew it wasn’t due to the exertion of climbing the stairs. It was because of what had happened here, 50 years ago. The night that changed her life forever. Clutching her suitcase with one hand and her chest with the other, she cowered against the wall, fighting to regain control, struggling to catch her breath.
“Don’t fall, don’t fall,” she whispered.
Extract from Nineteen Steps by Millie Bobby Brown (HQ £16.99), published on September 12. To order a copy, go to timesbookshop.co.uk or call 020 3176 2935. Free UK standard P&P on online orders over £25. Special discount available for Times+ members
