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Topics: Celebrity, Crime, Film and TV
Mia Williams
Warning: This article contains discussion of child abuse which some readers may find distressing.
Matilda star Mara Wilson has opened up about discovering disturbing fake images of herself at 12 years old.
The former child star played the title role in the beloved 1996 film Matilda, quickly securing herself as one of the most recognisable young actors of the decade.
Matilda stars Danny DeVito as the little girl's con-man car salesman father, Rhea Perlman as her mom Zinnia, Pam Ferris as the terrifying Miss Trunchbull, and Embeth Davidtz as Miss Honey.
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But Wilson, now 38, has opened up about a horrifying moment she experienced several years after starring in the iconic film.
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."
Opening up about the dark moment, Wilson added: "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 taken images and clips of the young actor from the 1996 film, and manipulated them into child sexual abuse material.
"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.
But it's not the first time she's opened up about finding the disturbing material.
In a piece for the New York Times, she 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."
And the star is warning that the crime is becoming more and more prevalent in the digital age.
Wilson added that AI tools are accelerating the creation and spread of harmful manipulated images online, and it's not limited to those in the public eye.
"With AI, what happened to me can happen to any child or any woman. It can happen to anybody," she said.
The former child star previously opened up about her mother dying of cancer during the post-production phase of Matilda, following a six-month battle.
"I felt completely lost, completely unmoored," she said, speaking to the Guardian, "There was who I was before that, and who I was after that."
If you’ve been affected by any of these issues or want to speak to someone in confidence regarding the welfare of a child, the Childhelp USA National Child Abuse Hotline (1-800-4-A-CHILD (1-800-422-4453) operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and receives calls from throughout the United States, Canada, US Virgin Islands, Guam and Puerto Rico.