Featured Image Credit: NBC
Topics: Celebrity, TV and Film
Jess Hardiman
Topics: Celebrity, TV and Film
Taylor Lautner has revealed he didn’t go to a supermarket or cinema for 10 years after making the Twilight movies, saying he would feel ‘super anxious’ about going out in public to find ‘screaming’ fans.
Speaking to Jason Kennedy on Today earlier this week, Lautner, 29, spoke about what it had been like to experience such huge fame off the back of The Twilight Saga film series - in which he starred as shapeshifter Jacob Black - when he was just a teenager.
He said: "I was 16, 17, 18 years old, waking up and trying to just go out for a walk or, you know, go on a date and... I have 12 cars waiting outside my house to follow me wherever I'm going or, you know, when you show up to an airport or anywhere and you have thousands of fans screaming.
"In the moment, it's like, it got frustrating. Because you just wanted to live a normal life."
He continued: “But when that's taken away from you at all, you start to question yourself, and start to be, like, 'Oh, do people not care about me anymore?'
"When it goes away a little bit, you notice it, and that's, that's the dangerous part, because that can really mess with your mind."
Kennedy said Lautner once told him he ‘didn’t go to a grocery store, movie theatre or a mall for 10 years,’ which had ‘shocked’ him.
He then asked the star what it felt like to go back into public spaces like these – adding that Lautner now ‘loves’ the supermarket, and goes to one about five times a week.
“It felt like freedom,” Lautner said.
"I went so many years, like, either not leaving my house, or, if I did, you know, hat, sunglasses… like, scared.
"It built up something inside of me where, I didn't know it, but I was scared to go out. I'd get super anxious to go out. So I just didn't."
Lautner went on to live with his parents for a while to spend a bit of time away from Hollywood.
"It was needed for me personally, so I, Taylor, feel so much better today than I have in the last four or five years,” he explained.
Lautner, who is now engaged to partner Taylor 'Tay' Dome, said if someone asked him four or five years ago if the fame was ‘worth it’, he would have maybe wished he hadn’t gone through it.
He added: "But if you ask me now, I say, 'No. I am, I'm happy because of what it’s taught me.'
"It’s made me who I am right now. For that, I'm, I'm thankful."