Featured Image Credit: Alberto E. Rodriguez/FilmMagic
Topics: TV And Film, Crime, Artificial intelligence, Celebrity
Lucy Devine
Topics: TV And Film, Crime, Artificial intelligence, Celebrity
Mara Wilson, who starred in Matilda, has revealed the shocking discovery she made after she Googled herself at the age of 12.
The much-loved 1996 film tells the tale of a six-year-old child who attempts to navigate her psychokinetic abilities with the help of her loving teacher Miss Honey, all the while avoiding her neglectful family and the dreaded Miss Trunchbull - the cruel headmistress of her school.
It stars Danny DeVito as the youngster's con-man car salesman father, Rhea Perlman as mother Zinnia, Pam Ferris as the terrifying Miss Trunchbull, and Embeth Davidtz as Miss Honey.
Wilson bagged the role as Matilda after starring as Natalie 'Nattie' Hillard in Mrs Doubtfire, and little Susan Walker in festive favourite Miracle on 34th Street.
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Despite the movie being a firm family favourite, there are some heartbreaking and dark details regarding Wilson's life outside of the film.
Tragically, Wilson's mother had been dying of cancer while she filmed Matilda, succumbing to the disease six months after filming while it was still in post-production.
Wilson previously told The Guardian: "I felt completely lost, completely unmoored. There was who I was before that, and who I was after that.
"She was like this omnipresent thing in my life. I really believed that she would never die, and as I've gotten older, she's taken on even more of a mythical quality in my mind. To lose her felt like this incredible upheaval. I didn't really know who I was."
Wilson also revealed the shocking discovery she made when she Googled herself at the age of 12.
Speaking to Channel 4, she explained: "So 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, to this day, wishing I had never done it.
"Because what I found were people on a forum saying they had images of me nude and having sex. I was 12 years old, obviously there was nothing like that out there about me, I had never been kissed."
Criminals had used images from Wilson's films and turned them into child sexual abuse.
"I was incredibly devastated, I could not stop crying, I felt ashamed, I tried to hide. I think it may have been one of the factors that led me to not want to act anymore," she added.
Meanwhile, in a self-written piece for the New York Times, Wilson previously said: "Before I even turned 12, there were images of me on foot fetish websites and photoshopped into child pornography.
"Every time, I felt ashamed."