Millie Bobby Brown

• 1. Introduction

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  In 2018, Time magazine placed Millie Bobby Brown on its list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Nobody younger had ever appeared on it. That same year she became the youngest person ever appointed a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. Brown is a British actress and film producer, and by then she was already a household name for millions of viewers who had never seen her out of character. What path led a child actress to that list? How does a young performer turn a single role into a producing career and a business of her own? And what does it cost to grow up in public view?

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• 2. Moving Often

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  Millie Bonnie Brown was born on the 19th of February 2004 in Marbella, a city in Andalusia, Spain. She was the third of four children born to Kelly and Robert Brown, both British. Her father worked as an estate agent.

  Her middle name was Bonnie, but when she began working under a stage name she swapped it for Bobby. Brown was also born with partial hearing loss in her left ear. Over several years she gradually lost all hearing in that ear.

  At the age of four, the family moved back to England and settled in the town of Bournemouth, Dorset. Another move followed when she was eight, this time to Orlando, Florida. Brown has said she grew up with "no money". That financial insecurity, she has explained, shaped her relationship with money even in adulthood, long after success arrived.

  Years of living on both sides of the Atlantic left a mark on her voice. Brown naturally shifts between an American accent and her native British one, depending on who is around her.

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• 3. Finding Eleven

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  In 2013, Brown made her acting debut as Young Alice in Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, an ABC fantasy drama that spun off from Once Upon a Time. A year later she took a starring role as Madison O'Donnell in Intruders, a paranormal drama-thriller on BBC America. She also made guest appearances in the CBS police procedural NCIS, the ABC sitcom Modern Family and the ABC medical drama Grey's Anatomy.

  In 2016, she auditioned for the part of Lady Lyanna Mormont on Game of Thrones and did not get it. She was then cast as Eleven, also known as Jane Hopper, in the Netflix science fiction horror series Stranger Things.

  Critics praised her performance. She earned nominations for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series and for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series. With her co-stars, she won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series. She also won the 43rd Saturn Award for Best Performance by a Younger Actor in a Television Series.

  The second season brought her another round of nominations from both the Screen Actors Guild and the Emmys, in 2018. Her last turn as Eleven came in the fifth and final season in 2025, nine years after the series began.

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• 4. Producer's Chair

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  Godzilla: King of the Monsters, released in 2019, marked Brown's feature film debut. It was the sequel to the 2014 film Godzilla, and she played Madison Russell. She returned to the role in the next sequel, Godzilla vs. Kong, in 2021.

  In 2020, Brown starred in and produced Enola Holmes, a film adaptation of The Enola Holmes Mysteries. She reprised the role in Enola Holmes 2 in 2022. According to Variety, she earned $10 million for playing Enola Holmes, which made her one of the highest paid actresses in Hollywood that year.

  Damsel arrived on Netflix in 2024, with Brown starring as Elodie Bayford and serving as executive producer. The fantasy film was directed by the Spanish filmmaker Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, from a screenplay by Dan Mazeau. In 2025 she played Michelle Greene in The Electric State, the Russo brothers' adaptation of Simon Stålenhag's graphic novel of the same name.

  Many of these projects shared a home. Some media outlets have called Brown a "Stream Queen" because so much of her work first appeared on streaming services, mainly Netflix. Louis Chilton of The Independent argued that there had never really been such a thing as a "streaming actor". Then he added, "Until Brown, that is".

  In July 2025, Brown and Gabriel LaBelle were set to star in the Netflix romantic comedy Just Picture It. Brown is also listed as producer on Enola Holmes 3, due in 2026.

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• 5. Brand Partnerships

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  Since November 2016, Brown has appeared in commercial advertisements for the financial services company Citigroup. Her modelling debut came in January 2017, in Calvin Klein's "By Appointment" campaign. The following month she signed with the agency IMG Models. In the summer of 2018 she appeared in an advertising campaign for the Italian brand Moncler, and she has also been on the cover of Vogue. In 2020 she became an ambassador for the fashion brand Louis Vuitton.

  On the 25th of August 2019, Brown launched her own cosmetics and fashion brand, Florence by Mills. It targets Gen Z adolescent girls, with products meant to suit young people's skin. The beauty line is sold at the UK pharmacy Boots, at Walmart in the United States and at Shoppers Drug Mart in Canada. She later added clothing and fashion, available only online.

  On the 11th of July 2019, Brown released a Converse collaboration called "Millie By You". It was a customizable collection of classic Chuck Taylor styles, with designs inspired by her love of the ocean and whales. Late that year came a second collection under the same name, with three new sneakers inspired by her love of DIY crafting.

  In October 2019, she became the face of the Pandora Me collection, a line of customizable charms, bracelets and earrings. The brand announced a two-year partnership and she hosted "Pandora Me Charm Academy" events. In early 2020 she co-designed a collection of sunglasses and eyeglasses with Vogue Eyewear, inspired by the 1990s and her travels. It featured pastel colors, unusual shapes and retro materials, and some models came with a crossbody pouch.

  The partnerships kept pace with her career. For the promotion of Stranger Things' fifth season in 2025, she worked with Chips Ahoy on cookies inspired by the series.

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• 6. Beyond the Screen

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  In November 2016, Brown starred in the music video for "Find Me" by Sigma, featuring Birdy. Videos followed for The xx's "I Dare You" in 2017, then Maroon 5's "Girls Like You", featuring Cardi B, and Drake's "In My Feelings" in 2018. In 2019 she appeared in a Mariah Carey video, and in 2020 she joined Mariah Carey's Magical Christmas Special.

  In 2018, she voiced the narrator in Spheres: Songs of Spacetime, a virtual reality experience produced by Darren Aronofsky. Her segment was titled "Chorus of the Cosmos". That year, EA Games announced that she had worked with The Sims 4 programmers on the Sims 4 Positivity Challenge, and she appeared in the game as a free downloadable character. She later became a playable character as Eleven in Fortnite Battle Royale in 2023, and her likeness is set to be playable in Dead by Daylight in 2026.

  The Hollywood Reporter ranked Brown among Hollywood's top thirty stars under age eighteen in 2018. Time also named her one of the most influential teens of both 2017 and 2018. She became an ambassador for UEFA's Together #WePlayStrong campaign.

  In September 2023, Brown released her debut novel, Nineteen Steps, which is based on her own family history. It is described as an "epic story of love, loss and secrets". Her studies continued alongside all of this. As of August 2022, she has been an online student at Purdue University, studying health and human services.

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• 7. Under Scrutiny

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  Brown was 12 years old when casting in Stranger Things brought her into the public eye. At age 14, memes featuring homophobic quotes that were falsely attributed to her began circulating on social media. She has said this was one of the reasons she eventually deactivated her Twitter account. She has also faced social media users and articles that sexualised her.

  On her 16th birthday in 2020, she answered in an Instagram caption. She wrote, "There are moments I get frustrated from the inaccuracy, inappropriate comments, sexualisation and unnecessary insults that have ultimately resulted in pain and insecurity for me." After she turned 18 in February 2022, her social media profiles were flooded with sexually explicit material from users.

  On the 3rd of March 2025, Brown posted an Instagram video responding to media backlash over her appearance. She criticised journalists, including multiple reporters from the Daily Mail and the former Great British Bake Off host Matt Lucas, for what she called bullying and body shaming. As an adult, she said, she should not be expected to continue looking like a child. Lucas posted an apology on Instagram the very next day.

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• 8. A New Name

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  In 2021, Brown began a relationship with the actor Jake Bongiovi. In April 2023, she announced that the two were engaged. On the 27th of May 2024, People reported that the couple had married in a private ceremony the previous weekend.

  Brown also announced that she had chosen to take her husband's last name. That is why her full name is now Millie Bonnie Bongiovi, even though she still works professionally as Millie Bobby Brown. The couple live in the state of Georgia.

  In August 2025, Brown and Bongiovi announced that they had adopted a girl. The child's godfather is Noah Schnapp, Brown's close friend and her Stranger Things co-star.

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