Stranger Things star reveals 40-year-old woman had crush on him when he was 13

Stranger Things has been a worldwide sensation since its premiere in 2016… for better or worse, with one star revealing how a 40-year-old woman confessed to having a crush on him when he was a teenager.

When the Netflix series began, the main cast was around 11 and 12 years old, with each season following them as they grew up through High School; grappling with their sexuality, falling in love, fighting inter-dimensional monsters — you know, standard coming-of-age stuff.

Stranger Things Season 5 (the final chapter of the series) is expected to have a time jump to deal with the stars growing up; for example, Millie Bobby Brown is 20 years old, while Finn Wolfhard is already 21.

The show catapulted them to global fame, but according to Gaten Matarazzo, some of the interactions with fans have been “a little uncomfortable.”

“I did one very recently — and this is not very funny, but the reactions around it were quite funny — where this woman in her 40s said straight up, ‘I’ve had a crush on you since you were 13,'” he recalled while appearing on the Inside of You podcast.

“And I was like, ‘That’s upsetting.’ I’m sure she just meant, ‘Aw, this kid’s cute.’”

However, the woman told Matarazzo she was “aware of the age difference… and then I was like, ‘Alright.’ And her daughter was with her, and her daughter goes, ‘Mom, what the f**k?’ I swear to God.”

On Reddit, fans branded the woman’s comments “gross” and questioned why she would tell him that in the first place. “Ugh, there’s just some things people really shouldn’t admit to,” one wrote.

“All these kids are perved on in ways I hadn’t seen before. The number of women openly thirsting about another boy on the show was super weird. The obsession with making Millie Bobby Brown look older and grow up faster,” another commented.

“Not trying to brush aside how weird that is for a grown woman to approach a child like that but U couldn’t help but notice how mature, rational, and even-keeled Gaten seems,” a third user wrote, praising Matarazzo’s response to the woman.

Before Season 5, make sure you check out this fan theory about Will transforming into a new villain, as well as who’s expected to die and why Cobra Kai may have revealed a big change to its release strategy. You can also find other new TV shows to stream this month.