Stranger Things star Grace Van Dien is taking a step back from acting after a traumatic experience on the set of a recent film.
Van Dien, whose character Chrissy went viral thanks to a TikTok sound featuring co-star Joseph Quinn, shared the update during a recent Twitch live stream.
“I’ve actually turned down, in the last two and a half weeks, four movies,” Van Dien said, per IndieWire.
As she continued, Van Dien explained why she has chosen to focus her energies on streaming. “The fact of the matter is, the last few projects I’ve worked on, I didn’t have the best experiences with some of the people I had to work for,” she shared. “And with streaming, I get to choose who I hang out with, who I talk to, etc. etc.”
According to Van Dien, one film producer hired a woman he was sleeping with, who he then allegedly sent to ask her for a threesome.
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“That’s my boss,” she said of the alleged harassment. “I didn’t [do it] and I cried and I was so upset, but it’s like, when people are like, ‘How is streaming better for your mental health?’ That’s how. I get to stay inside my home and play video games and I don’t have my boss asking me to have sex with him. That’s how this is better for my mental health.”
Van Dien noted that she brought the incident up with her management team, but it’s not a situation she—or any other professional—should ever have to deal with.
“My castmate, she was there with me and was like, ‘Did I just hear that correctly?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah,’” she continued. “And she was like, ‘Want to go take a walk?’ I was like, ‘Yeah.’ And we just had a miserable time. We cried a lot on that shoot.”
As a result, she’s going to stick with streaming for a while. “I hope that’s not a huge wrench in your plans for me, but I’m happy here,” she said, adding, “And I’m developing my own projects and I’m hoping that someone decides to fund them because then I can be in control of my own set and I’m not going to ask my actors to sleep with me, so that’s cool, right?”
You can support Van Dien’s new ventures by following her on Twitch.
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