Millie Bobby Brown responds to criticism of her accent: ‘I’m trying my best’

‘I’m an actor and I adapt, and so I want to mimic other people,’ said Brown

Millie Bobby Brown has responded to fans who questioned the apparent loss of her British accent in interviews, saying: “I’m trying my best”.

Last week, some fans of the actor were left confused and bewildered by Brown’s accent during her appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.

Viewers said they were distracted by the disappearance of her formerly prominent British accent.

The 20-year-old moved to Florida when she was eight, but had appeared to keep the accent of her early childhood in Bournemouth in previous interviews.

Now, speaking to TikTok interviewer Max Balegde, Brown has offered her perspective.

“I’m an actor,” said the Stranger Things and Enola Holmes star. “I grew up in the public eye. I grew up in America. I come to set and I’m an actor and I adapt, and so I want to mimic other people!”

Millie Bobby Brown in ‘Damsel’ (Netflix)

“I can’t help that when I’m around my fiancé, or when I’m with people like Jimmy Fallon who have a very American accent, I wanna replicate it!” she said. “And now I’m in England, I wanna replicate that [accent]! I don’t do it intentional, and I’m sorry if it offends you, okay? But listen, I’m trying my best! I’m trying my best.”

Brown is engaged to Jake Bongiovi, 21, the son of rock star Jon Bon Jovi.

While appearing on The Tonight Show Brown discussed her underwater proposal by Bongiovi, and appeared to switch between accents, causing some fans to remark she sounded “Australian” as she flipped between American and British.

The Emmy-nominated actor told the audience how her and Bongiovi got their diving licences together, and that he’d felt it was the perfect opportunity to propose while they were on holiday.

“So we go under, and we’re many metres down and he gives me like, a shell. And I turn it over and it’s a ring,” she told Fallon.

She described how she put the ring on her finger before it slid off and “plummeted” deep into the water, prompting her new fiancé to swim after it.

Brown can currently be seen in Netflix’s Damsel, in which she speaks with a British accent.

In a two-star review of the film for The Independent, chief film critic Clarisse Loughrey suggested that Netflix “may have been better off just making Enola Holmes 3.”

The final season of Stranger Things is expected to land on Netflix in 2024.

While the series creators, sibling duo Matt and Ross Duffer, announced in early 2022 that the show would conclude with a fifth season, production was halted for approximately seven months due to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes in 2023.