Fame can be both a blessing and a curse, especially when the individual is a child. No one knows it better than “America’s Got Talent” winner Jackie Evancho, who was 10-years-old when she shot to stardom after performing on the NBC hit competition show. But the now-18-year-old is reflecting on it all as she enters adulthood.
Jackie Evancho performed the national anthem at Pres. Donald Trump’s inauguration in 2017.
In a Facebook post on Wednesday, Evancho celebrated “NEW BEGINNINGS” as she reflected on how her life has been in the last eight years.
“With the onset of a New Year and me entering adulthood as an 18-year-old moving to New York, I felt the need to put this out into the universe as a way of continuing the healing process I’m on,” she wrote. “I no longer have the fear to stay silent. People often still think of me as a child star, and that isn’t easy to shake off. I just performed on NBC’s AGT’s The Champions and it allowed me to reflect on my journey – the reason I wanted to do the show was to walk onto that stage as a young woman and show the world I am no longer a child.”
Evancho described her loneliness and isolation despite her parent’s best efforts to mitigate the disruption that fame brought to Evancho’s burgeoning teen years. She even recounted truly terrifying moments in her young life and career that have left their mark.
“I trust absolutely no one unless they are family or have passed through years of my life without hurting me in some way. Throughout my childhood I was also facing another reality – that there were men out there who wanted to hurt me. Some even went to the extreme of claiming they were priests and other disarming occupations to gain trust and easy access backstage, but clearly their intentions weren’t so pure … There was the fear of stalkers and other dangers of being in the spotlight that my family and I had to deal with.”
Attempted Ronald Reagan assassin, John Hinkley Jr., was a stalker of former child star Jodie Foster.
Stalking is an all too common issue that arises when someone becomes famous and it’s even worse when they latch onto a young person. Child stars often have to deal with a lot of inappropriate situations that they’re not equipped to handle on their own. It’s a blessing when someone comes out of child stardom as well adjusted as Jackie has.
Despite all of the negative aspects of child stardom, though, Evancho’s message spoke of focusing on the positive and how blessed she is to get to do what she loves.
“All these things were terrible as a child and yet I’m still here performing and loving it. A lot of people may ask ‘Why?’ and I say it’s my path, my dream, and my passion, with a fire inside of me when I perform. I’ve learned that there is a lot about the world that is sad. That’s just life, but there are also many beautiful parts of life that I cherish and focus on.”
Fame can be a difficult thing to deal with, but Evancho has the right attitude to deal with it, focus on the positive, and move on.
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