Molly Ringwald is opening up about her experience as a teenager in Hollywood, saying she was taken advantage of by "predators" in the industry.
The "Breakfast Club" star revisited the memories during an appearance on the "WTF with Marc Maron" podcast.
"I was in Hollywood, just because I was so young, really, and basically kind of a shy, introverted person. I wasn't into kind of like going out to clubs," Ringwald said, according to the Independent.
"I feel like I'm a little — I'm more social now than I was then, but I was just too young. And it was awkward," she continued.
"Well, you're lucky you didn't get taken advantage of or got into some sort of horrible situation," Maron said.
"Oh, I was taken advantage of. You can't be a young actress in Hollywood and not have predators around," Ringwald responded.
"But I wasn't raped by Harvey Weinstein. So I'm grateful for that," she added.
Ringwald recalled finding herself in "questionable situations" as a young actor on the rise, but her "incredible survival instinct and a pretty big superego" helped to "protect" her from the Hollywood predators.
"But, yeah, it can be harrowing," she said.
"And I have a 20-year-old daughter now who is going into the same profession, even though I did everything I could to convince her to do something else. And it's hard."
Ringwald, who starred in a string of 80s hits including John Hughes' "Sixteen Candles" and "Pretty in Pink," previously spoke about how she later realized some of the iconic films were misogynistic.
"Back then, I was only vaguely aware of how inappropriate much of John's writing was," she wrote in a 2018 essay for The New Yorker.
She went on to state his writing could easily be considered "racist, misogynistic, and, at times, homophobic."
In an interview with the U.K.'s The Times earlier this year, Ringwald admitted, while there was "a lot" that she loved about "The Breakfast Club," there are elements that "haven't aged well."
"Like Judd Nelson's character, John Bender, who essentially sexually harasses my character," she said.
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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