'Stranger Things' Star Grace Van Dien Reveals Acting Break After Alleging Producer Asked for Sex on Set

By Stephen Andrew

Stranger Things star Grace Van Dien has revealed that she is taking a break from acting, after allegedly being propositioned for sex by a producer while on the set of a project she was working on. IndieWire reports that Van Dien — who played ill-fated senior cheerleading captain Chrissy Cunningham in the hit Netflix series — spoke out during a Twitch live stream, revealing that she has no current plans to act professionally. "I've actually turned down, in the last two and a half weeks, four movies," she said.

"Here's the thing: I've seen that some people are upset with me for turning down acting projects and deciding to stream more, but the fact of the matter is, the last few projects I've worked on, I didn't have the best experiences with some of the people I had to work for," Van Dien went on to explain. "And with streaming, I get to choose who I hang out with, who I talk to, etc. etc." She then shared what happened to her on-set, revealing, "One of the last movies I did, one of the producers asked me to...like, he hired a girl that he was sleeping with and then he had her ask me to have a threesome with them."

Van Dien continued, "So like, that's my boss. I didn't [do it] and I cried and I was so upset, but it's like, when people are like, 'How is streaming better for your mental health?' That's how. I get to stay inside my home and play video games and I don't have my boss asking me to have sex with him. That's how this is better for my mental health."

The shocking moment caught her totally, off guard, but Van Dien says she feels she "handled it the right way." She explained, "I told my management. My castmate, she was there with me and was like, 'Did I just hear that correctly?' And I was like, 'Yeah.' And she was like, 'Want to go talk a walk?' I was like, 'Yeah.' And we just had a miserable time. We cried a lot on that shoot."

Concluding her comments, Van Dien shared that she is going to keep doing Twitch streams for now because she is more comfortable. "That's why I'm going to stick to streaming for a little bit, and I hope that's not a huge wrench in your plans for me, but I'm happy here," she said. "And I'm developing my own projects and I'm hoping that someone decides to fund them because then I can be in control of my own set and I'm not going to ask my actors to sleep with me, so that's cool, right?"

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