Dakota Fanning Shares ‘Super-Inappropriate Questions’ She Was Asked As A Child Star

Dakota Fanning is still baffled by the “super-inappropriate” things she was asked as a child star.

The “Perfect Couple” actor, who made her television debut at only 6 years old in 2000 and later starred in blockbusters opposite Denzel Washington and Tom Cruise, recently spoke with The Cut about growing up in Hollywood and the bizarre things reporters would ask her.

“I remember journalists asking me, ‘How are you avoiding becoming a tabloid girl?’” Fanning told the outlet. “People would ask super-inappropriate questions. I was in an interview as a child and somebody asked, ‘How could you possibly have any friends?’ It’s like, Huh?”

“I have a lot of compassion for people who have been made into examples,” the 30-year-old continued. “If society and the media hadn’t played their part, who knows? I don’t think that it’s necessarily connected a hundred percent to being in this business; there are other factors, too.”

Fanning added the struggles of some of her elder peers, such as Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears, were “deeply shoved down my throat” as cautionary tales when she was starting out — and agreed with the interviewer that people had an odd fetish for “the fallen child actor.”

“That’s the thing,” she told the outlet. “It’s like, Is that what you want to happen to me somehow? Is that what you want to happen to these people? I’ve definitely felt like this kind of vibe from people almost wanting me to fail or something. It makes you feel a little bit guarded.”

“I think also I was just a little too young for it to fully hit me,” Fanning added. “So that was good.”

Fanning came of age before social media did and, while she agrees that “there are still pressures” in the entertainment industry these days, she also thinks “there’s more freedom to just be a fucking person” now.

“If you look back to the early 2000s, if you pick up an Us Weekly from then, it’s crazy the way it was totally normal then to discuss someone’s cellulite,” she told The Cut. “It was outrageous then, obviously, but it’s just unacceptable, so I’m happy that doesn’t happen as much anymore.”

Fanning started out with small roles on shows like “E.R.” and “Ally McBeal” before being cast in major films opposite titans such as Sean Penn and Robert De Niro — and worked with renowned directors like Steven Spielberg and Tony Scott all before becoming a teenager.

Well aware of the pitfalls of child stardom, Fanning is grateful to have avoided them.

“I don’t know the exact reasons except that my family is comprised of very nice, kind, protective people,” she told The Cut. “I have a mother who taught me how to treat other people and also how to treat myself. And she was there every second. I was always treated with respect.”