Mischa Barton has reflected back on her tough experience of growing up under Hollywood's harsh glare and being betrayed by an ex, who attempted to sell a private video of her in an auction.
The actor was just eight when she booked her first modelling job, at 11 she appeared in Italian Vogue, and by 17, she'd been cast in the cult classic TV drama, The OC.
In the years that followed, her celebrity grew and grew. She was dubbed Karl Lagerfeld’s "face of a generation", cast in countless music videos, and The OC won two Teen Choice awards (while amassing millions of views per episode).
But for Barton, who left after three series, it wasn't all awards and accolades. She also faced sexist media scrutiny that young women in the limelight are far too often subjected to – a problem that in the Noughties, in many ways, was even more vicious.
Fans will recall how Barton couldn't leave her house without being followed by paparazzi, gossip bloggers criticised her weight (she was once called "bloated Barton"), and in 2017, TMZ shared a video of the star titled: "Mischa Barton, Rambling, Incoherent... She Says After Being Drugged."
Shockingly, the footage, which shows Barton after she was spiked with a date rape drug, is still on YouTube.
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Talking to The Times about her past, Mischa Barton said: "It was all very Hunger Games." Now, 37, she says she has post-traumatic stress disorder and the sound of cameras can trigger a panic attack.
"You can go to therapy every day for the rest of your life," she told the publication, "but there’s just a certain amount of trauma [from] all that I went through, particularly in my early twenties, that just doesn’t go away overnight."
Elsewhere in the interview, she spoke of her ex-boyfriend Jon Zacharias' attempt to auction intimate video footage of her off, in 2017. A long legal battle ensued, which Barton eventually won, preventing Zacharias from distributing the footage, which she says was filmed without her consent. She describes the ordeal as "one of the worst and most gruelling experiences of my life".
The Times also addressed how Barton, like many other child stars, has witnessed changing attitudes in recent years, with some offering apologies to women who were wrongly treated in the past, including herself.
"You can see how sorry people feel for what they did to people like Britney [Spears] then. Everyone now is like, 'I can't believe we did that to those poor women,'" Barton acknowledged. "People feel so entitled to you and your body and your image. It’s a strange feeling. It’s strange."
Thankfully, Barton has not let this stop her from pursuing her creative passion, and her projects include a prized role in the upcoming Neighbours reboot.
Amber O’Connor is Cosmopolitan UK’s former junior features writer, who covers everything from breaking news, women’s safety and real life features to fitness, travel, and cultural trends. She works on first-person features, reports, and long reads, plus the hottest stories of the day (if you want to know about the latest wellness craze or TikTok trends, she’s your girl). Amber has previously worked as a reporter and a lifestyle writer, with her work appearing in numerous publications, including The Mirror, Red Magazine, Evening Standard, Indy100, and Yahoo News. When she’s not working her way through her TBR list, Amber loves dancing, running, and going on adventures with her dog.
