The Stranger Things star opened up about stepping away from social media in 2021, calling the experience “hell” and saying she’s never looked back. The 22-year-old actress made the revelation during a candid conversation with Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, explaining that handing over control of her accounts was a necessary move for her mental health.
Brown, who has over 70 million Instagram followers, says she still writes her own captions to stay connected with fans, but she no longer reads the comments. She made the decision to quit social media five years ago because she simply couldn’t do it anymore.
Brown described growing up in the spotlight as uniquely challenging, especially for young women in the entertainment industry. When Horowitz noted that social media can be particularly harsh for famous young women, Brown agreed without hesitation: “It’s hell.”
She explained that she deleted her accounts in 2021 and never looked back. “I couldn’t do it anymore. Like, I tried, but I have a large digital footprint,” she said. She eventually came to a realization: “There’s no need for this anymore.”
Rather than completely abandoning her online presence, Brown hired a social media expert to manage her accounts, a decision she frames entirely as a mental health necessity. “I needed to hire someone, for my mental health, to take care of it for me. Somebody who is an expert in social media, who knows what they’re doing,” she shared.
She still maintains a connection to her audience through her captions, which she writes herself. But reading reactions to her posts is now off-limits. “I still want to feel connected to my fans. I still want my fans to know it’s my caption,” Brown explained. “But I don’t want to see what people have to say about it. Because I don’t care.”
Brown’s comments come after a decade of playing Eleven on Stranger Things, a role she began at just ten years old. She recently opened up about the emotional toll of saying goodbye to the series, revealing that she “bawled for like the whole of January” after watching the finale. She called up every castmate to “mend” any lingering issues, treating them like siblings she didn’t want to lose.
Brown continues her work with Netflix, with Enola Holmes 3 having premiered on July 1, 2026. She’s balancing acting with life as a wife and mother at 22, having adopted a daughter with husband Jake Bongiovi in 2025. The actress has committed to protecting her family’s privacy, keeping her daughter’s name and face out of the public eye.
Her decision to step back from social media management reflects a broader shift in how celebrities, particularly those who grew up online, are protecting their mental health. Brown’s approach offers a model: stay connected on your own terms, don’t read the noise, and prioritize wellbeing over engagement metrics. Her blunt honesty about the “hell” of being scrutinized online resonates with anyone who’s ever felt overwhelmed by the digital world.
