Mischa Barton felt pressured to lose virginity during ‘The O.C.’ because she ‘felt like a fraud’

Mischa Barton recently opened up about being sexualized from a young age and all the struggles of being a young actress in an essay she wrote for Harper’s Bazaar U.K.

Barton wrote that this year of quarantine has “brought a fresh life perspective and prompted me to reflect upon trauma I have been so scared to speak out about for many years.”

“Why? For fear of rejection, backlash and victim-blaming that so many others before me have suffered,” she added.

Barton spoke about her rise to fame as a young actress and she said that she “felt like a fraud” when it came to her virginity and playing Marissa Cooper on The O.C. 

The 35-year-old actress felt pressured to lose her virginity in order to continue playing Marissa on the beloved drama series starring Barton, Adam Brody, Ben McKenzie and Rachel Bilson.

“Even being a virgin at the time in that context made me feel like a fraud… Here, I was playing a confident character [in The O.C.] who was fast and loose and yet I was still a virgin. The kids in the show were quintessential rich, privileged American teenagers drinking, taking drugs, and of course having sex,” she wrote.

“I knew it was important to get this thing – my virginity – that was looming over me, the elephant in the room if you will, out of the way. I started to really worry that I couldn’t play this character if I didn’t hurry up and mature a little. Did I ever feel pressured to have sex with someone? Well, after being pursued by older men in their 30s, I eventually did the deed.”

Barton said she felt “a little guilty” because she “let it happen.”

“I felt so much pressure to have sex, not just from him, but society in general. This was early on in those critical days and when I finally met someone new and wanted to remove myself from the situation, it created a toxic and manipulative environment,” Barton wrote.

Barton also reflected on being sexualized from a very young age. She said that her film debut was Lawn Dogs, a film that explored themes of child molestation.

“While the crew did everything to ensure that I wasn’t exposed to the realities of what all that meant – when I did press for the film, it became clear that it was very mature content,” she said.

“Two years later, I did Pups with Burt Reynolds. Lead roles in coming-of-age films are always directly tied to sex and sexuality, and this was a prime example. It was for Pups that I had my first kiss on screen and in real life, in front of an entire Crew,” Barton explained.

"My character had her first period in one scene, something I hadn’t even experienced in life yet. The movie blew up in Asia, and I became a strange sex symbol over there. I was 13.”

When Barton was thrown into the spotlight with The O.C., she had to deal with being stalked by paparazzi and the wrath of Perez Hilton criticizing her every move.

“It was really when I started dating that the press started coming for me. There was no relief from it, so I fought for a long time to be unfamous. But the more I shied away, the more frenzied the paparazzi became,” Barton explained.

She said that it “became too much” to read about herself every day and “to have these publications laugh at my pain.”

“It’s something I don’t think anybody would be able to get away with to that extent now, not even close,” she added.

The Hills: New Beginnings star said that the paparazzi made her feel like she was trapped in her house because she didn’t want to leave.

She said if she were to leave, “it wouldn’t have been safe because of the dangerous situations that the paparazzi created.”

Barton said that they would chase her car, attempt to climb over the walls to her house, track her phone and her car and they’d even make deals with restaurants so that when she went inside, someone would notify them.

“They’d buy cellphones for the homeless, instructing them to call as soon as they saw me walking down the street. I was stalked. They’d shoot directly into my home to the extent where I couldn’t even open my blinds. It was lockdown before there was a name for it.”

Barton said that what happened with the paparazzi gave her PTSD. 

“In the years afterwards, cameras would bother me; any noises that sounded like a shutter would give me a panic attack and make me extremely paranoid. I‘d have full blown panic attacks. I went to very dark places,” she explained.

Barton said that “for the teenage girl who did a lot of her sexual firsts in front of the world,” she has finally learned what it means to be in control of her own sexuality.

“I have grown to love watching women break through these taboos. The more we talk about what we’ve done to generations past, whether it be Britney Spears, who was so poorly treated by the press, or Natalie Portman talking about how she felt overly sexualized as a child, the sooner we can protect our young women and learn from our mistakes as a society,” Barton concluded.

BEFORE YOU GO: Rachel Bilson apologizes to former ‘The O.C.’ co-star

[video_embed id='2209462']BEFORE YOU GO: Rachel Bilson apologizes to former ‘The O.C.’ co-star[/video_embed]