You've got to be kidding me…
The paps were swarming. We'd only been here 20 minutes and we're surrounded.
I'm so done with this. How long can I remove myself from the public eye before they finally gave the fuck up? Two years on a private island off the coast of Rio de Janeiro had done little to diminish the interest.
Ten years ago, I auditioned for one of the most beloved young adult trilogies of all time. Frankly, I was more of an S.E. Hinton's Outsiders, That was Then This is Now, Rumble Fish kinda girl, but the millennials dug science fiction, fantasy romances with unrealistically handsome vampires and time traveling doctors who waited decades to realize or declare their feelings for the love interest. I made the banner mistake of agreeing with the production studio that an off-screen affair with my on-screen love interest would boost interest, ratings and ticket sales. Odd, since previous experiments (Madonna and Warren Beatty, Annette Benning and Warren Beatty, yikes, maybe this was a Warren Beatty curse…let's try Courtney Cox and David Arquette, Julianne Hough and Ryan Seacrest, Liam Hemsley and Miley Cyrus… You get the picture.
The executives seemed positive a relationship between the tween-teen star of The Anxiety Closet and teen-Twenty something actor from The Chalice of Liquid would be a liaison made in heaven. The girls would want to be me, and the girls would want to be with my co-star and the boys would try to figure out how to be more like my co-star without actually looking like poser "wanna-be"s. It was a pretty solid plan. No one, I mean NO ONE in my camp predicted the media.
We dodged, ducked, dove, dipped and dodged. Umbrellas were unfurled, laser pointers were activated, camera flashes were triggered and we were well and properly photographed coming out of Skull Creek Boathouse on Hilton Head Island in South Carolina. I had been back on American soil for exactly five hours and pay dirt had been struck. All I wanted was a quiet week long vacation with my family. Rest assured, the rental car engines firing up behind us would determine our destination within hours and I would have to either vacate, evacuate or simply give them what they wanted.
The problem is, they didn't really want what they wanted. They wanted drama, ugly faces, unwashed hair, unconfirmed mobile phone calls, unsubstantiated text messages and out of context eye rolls to share with the "adoring" and "abhorring" public. What used to be an over the fence or high school hallway conversation had turned into an ugly, anonymous defamation of real live people and made up stories of their personal lives.
I am not ungrateful for the fortune upon which I have been bestowed. My first few movies made enough money to reimburse my mom for the head-shots and screen test videos she had had produced. I had been interested in voice over work on cartoons and children's shows, until my cousin, Siobhan and my Aunt convinced mom that it would require $2500 worth of demo tapes and coaching to get me where Siobhan was. Mom decided I was just as visually appealing as vocally, so my first paycheck went into her account.
The next payday went half to me and half to my savings. My dad stepped in after the first job and convinced mom that money needed to be saved as well as spent. She was ready for me to have a makeover, agent and publicity team. Dad reminded her and demanded half the income go into savings before "improvements" were engaged.
I loved my dad. Because of his involvement, I had more money than I could spend in a single lifetime available to me at a moment's notice. As my financial advisor, he was able to help Mom get her own shit together and remove her as my manager, but with a hefty nest-egg. He remained involved, only as an advisor at a single digit percentage salary. He paid off his home in Forks, Washington. Then he married the hottest Native American Quileute princess (aka His best friend, Billy's, sister) and bought a bit of land along the Northern-Pacific coast.
After the second film in the series opened, my life turned into a circus. My co-star, Edward, and I were hounded at every turn. We were paid, actually PAID to attend award ceremonies, charity events and film festivals around the world. Frankly, I wanted to attend most of them the first time around – payment or not – but the publicity pimps and advertising minions decided payment insured compliance. As if I couldn't reimburse these morons. Whatever, I got to sit next to royalty, play with adorable puppies and wear designer clothing I could and would never want to afford. It was a charmed life.
However, the charm tarnished quickly. Soon, Edward and I had been seen together too frequently and the tabs decided we were an item. Box office gold for our studio, but a bit much for us.