Millie Bobby Brown Felt ‘Powerless’ Amidst ‘Unhealthy Situation’ With Ex Hunter Ecimovic

A year after a TikToker claimed he ‘groomed’ a then-underage Millie Bobby Brown, the ‘Stranger Things’ star said she underwent a period of ‘healing’ after being so ‘publicly humiliated.’

“I felt very vulnerable,” Millie Bobby Brown says when discussing her past involvement with TikTok creator Hunter Ecimovic in Allure’s September 2022 issue. Millie, 18, said she was in an “unhealthy situation” with Hunter, 22, in 2020, which she walked away from in 2021. “Also, no one on the set knew I was going through this,” the Stranger Things star said. “So it was kind of nice to be able to just deal with that myself, and no one else knew. Then it was harder when the whole world knew.”

Hunter went on Instagram Live in July 2021 to make a series of crude comments about alleged sexual encounters with Millie while claiming he “groomed her” and lived at her house for eight months. “It was a year of healing,” Millie told Allure. “When you get publicly humiliated this way, I felt so out of control and powerless. Walking away and knowing that I’m worth everything and this person didn’t take anything from me, it felt very empowering. It felt like my life had finally turned a page and that I actually had ended a chapter that felt so f-cking long.”

“Ultimately, all I wanted to do within my career is help young girls and young people out there know that I, too, go through things,” she added. “I’m not this perfect person that is selling skin-care products and [who is] in Stranger Things. I absolutely have made wrong decisions.” Since then, Millie has found new love with Jake Bongiovi, the 20-year-old son of rock legend Jon Bon Jovi.

 

During Hunter’s initial livestream, he said that  what he did was “completely legal” and that he “will never apologize.” In a now-deleted TikTok video posted days after the IG Live session, Hunter said that the public outburst “should have never happened in the first place,” per Insider. “I was probably livestreaming for about two to three hours, and in those two to three hours, I was getting more and more drunk. … “I said stuff that should have never been said. I’m not proud at all of how I spoke.”

Hunter also walked-backed the “groomer” comment in the video replies. “I never groomed her. I never put pressure on her to like me?” he reportedly said in a comment that was pinned to the now-deleted video.

“Mr. Ecimovic’s remarks on social media are not only dishonest, but also are irresponsible, offensive and hateful,” Millie Bobby Brown’s rep said in a statement following the initial livestream, per The Daily Beast. “Instead of engaging in a public discourse with him through the press or on social media, we are taking action to ensure that he stops this behavior once and for all.”

Allure’s September 2022 issue is available on newsstands nationwide on August 16th.