4 years ago
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"People have an easier time hiding it when they're older."
Cole and his brother, Dylan, were on The Suite Life of Zack and Cody and its spinoff, The Suite Life on Deck, from 2005 to 2011 — and in a recent New York Times profile, Cole talked about how fame affected them and their peers.
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"My brother and I used to get quite a bit of, 'Oh, you made it out! Oh, you're unscathed!'" he said, before discussing how their female-identifying colleagues at the network were constantly scrutinized by comparison.
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"The young women on the channel we were on were so heavily sexualized from such an earlier age than my brother and I that there's absolutely no way that we could compare our experiences."
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"And every single person going through that trauma has a unique experience."
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Cole went on to point out that when people talk about "child stars going nuts," they are ignoring the fact that "fame is a trauma."
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"So I'm violently defensive against people who mock some of the young women who were on the channel when I was younger because I don't feel like it adequately comprehends the humanity of that experience and what it takes to recover."
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Cole also observed that, now that he's essentially gone through a "second big round of this fame game," the "psychological effects" of hitting the big time aren't dissimilar to how it felt when he was younger.
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"People have an easier time hiding it when they're older," he added.
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Read the entire profile here.
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