Yahoo Lifestyle Sydney Sweeney's Middle School Bullies Were So Cruel The Cops Had To Intervene
Sydney Sweeney says her road to fame was anything but smooth.
In an interview for Glamour magazine’s Women of the Year issue, the actor got candid about the challenges she faced while trying to make it in show business as a kid and how those obstacles made succeeding her only option.
Sweeney said she was just 12 when she found herself with a serious case of the acting bug after discovering an audition notice for a local independent film.
Set on finding some screen time, the tween sold her parents on her dream by drafting a PowerPoint presentation with a five-year business plan. After that, the family started to make the 38-hour round-trip drive between Spokane, Washington, and Los Angeles regularly.
And while her parents were beyond supportive, the same could not be said of Sweeney’s peers at school, according to the actor.
Sweeney told Glamour that other children hounded her relentlessly, leaving her embarrassed to be around some people she grew up with to this day.
She remembers being badgered with questions constantly, with queries ranging from harmless and curious to poorly disguised insults.
The cruelest questions tried to home in on her insecurities. The “Euphoria” star even remembers being told, “When are you going to stop breaking your family apart and wasting all their money and just go get a real job and have a real life?”
According to Glamour, the bullying became so intense that the police had to warn the other kids about their behavior.
While speaking to the magazine, Sweeney was also candid about the undeniable impact her dreams had on her parents’ relationship.
Several years after the family relocated to Los Angeles to make auditions easier on the then-high schooler, her parents ended up divorcing and filing for bankruptcy.
The toll Sweeney’s career aspirations took on her family made her both depressed and ever-determined, according to “The White Lotus” actor.
“There was a moment where I stopped wanting to go home, which made me really sad because I felt like a failure,” she told Glamour. “I knew that I could never actually fail because, I mean, on a very broad scale, my family did lose everything.”
After almost a decade of struggling to find her big break, Sweeney’s career began to take flight in her early 20s when she landed roles in “The Handmaid’s Tale” in 2017 and 2018′s “Sharp Objects.”
The next year, the critically acclaimed HBO drama “Euphoria” premiered, letting her talents shine in the role of complicated high schooler Cassie Howard.
While Sweeney was forced to weather years of tension, both at home and in the outside world, she told Glamour she doesn’t resent the people who once ridiculed her.
“I’m never one to hold a grudge,” she told Glamour. “I don’t think people’s perception of the world can change with hate. Hate doesn’t solve anything.”
