NEED TO KNOW
Dove Cameron is opening up about her experience with Hollywood.
In a new cover story for NYLON published on Wednesday, June 18, the actress and singer opened up about her relationship with fame — and why she needed to take a step back in 2022.
“I didn’t go out. I didn’t see anyone. I didn’t have relationships. I didn’t see my friends more than a few times,” Cameron, 29, told the publication.
She continued: “I didn’t work and just holed up in my house and tried to figure out how I was going to move forward, if I could move forward in the industry.”
Max Montgomery for NYLON
Then, Cameron revealed she contemplated quitting Hollywood completely.
“I had to really take stock of all of the things that I had been neglecting,” she said.
Cameron had endured a “particularly tumultuous time for my family and personal life” when she first entered Hollywood.
“The industry was like this beautiful extended make-believe — in the same way that when things are really bad, you can always dive into your favorite book,” she said.
Max Montgomery for NYLON
Being on set allowed her to play pretend because she had “someone who was your mom and your dad and your best friend and your boyfriend, and you’re like, ‘Wow, wouldn’t this be amazing if this was real life?’”
For Cameron, acting allowed her to have a “fake life” for “five days out of the week.”
“I spent less time being me, and that became addictive,” she said. “I was like, ‘This is so much better than what’s going on in my personal life.’”
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In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE in March, Cameron opened up about taking a hiatus to focus on her mental health.
“I think I was under the impression that because I have always been someone who was very in touch with what was going on with me, that it almost acted as a hindrance as I got older, I had convinced myself that I knew how to manage my mental health well,” she said at the time.
Cameron said she essentially “tricked” herself into thinking she didn’t need to “take breaks.”
“It was like, ‘I know what this is. I know how to deal with myself. I know how to help myself so I can continue doing whatever I want to do professionally at the rate that I want to do it, and I never need to stop,” she said.
However, her body and brain made the decision for her to slow down, which Cameron said is “the best thing that I’ve done for myself.”
“It will continue to be the only reason why I am so good and relatively functional now because I took that time,” she said.
