Millie Bobby Brown and David Harbour put on a united front at the Stranger Things season five premiere in Los Angeles on Thursday amid a viral report that Brown had filed a harassment and bullying claim against her older co-star.
Brown, 21, and Harbour, 50, were pictured hugging and smiling while posing for photos on the red carpet at the TCL Chinese Theatre together.
It comes after the Daily Mail, citing an unnamed source, reported that the British actor filed “pages and pages of accusations” against Harbour before filming began on the Netflix series’ final season.
The Independent has contacted representatives for Harbour, Brown and Netflix for comment.
On the red carpet, The Hollywood Reporter asked Stranger Things co-creator Ross Duffer about the bullying claims.
“Obviously, you understand I can’t get into personal onset matters, but I will say we’ve been doing this for 10 years with this cast, and at this point they’re family and we deeply care about them,” he said. “So, you know, nothing matters more than just having a set where everyone feels safe and happy.”
The publication also asked director and executive producer Shawn Levy how production handles a bullying complaint on set and “makes sure everyone feels safe and respected”.
“At the end of the day, that’s the job,” Levy replied. “You have to create a respectful workplace where everyone feels comfortable and safe, and so we did everything to build that environment. And we’re proud of the fact that we did so.”
He continued: “I’ve read a bunch of stories and they range from wildly inaccurate to … there’s so much noise around it. But the truth is that we view this crew and this cast as family, and so we treat each other with respect, and that’s always been bedrock.”
Netflix reportedly investigated the claims “for months”, the Mail reported. Harbour and Brown have been co-stars on the Netflix megahit for a decade. In the series, Harbour plays Brown’s adoptive father, police chief Jim Hopper, while Brown plays the main protagonist, Eleven – a child with psychokinetic powers.
There were reports questioning whether Harbour would join the rest of his Stranger Things cast for the season five press tour amid the bullying report and the release of his ex-wife, Lily Allen’s latest headline-making album.
The British singer recorded the album, her first in seven years, after the 2024 breakdown of her marriage to Harbour.
Covering themes such as cheating, gaslighting, and sex addiction, the album has been described by Allen as “a mixture of fact and fiction”.
In a recent interview with Esquire, Harbour acknowledged the “slip-ups and mistakes” in his life.
“You either accept your path completely and realise that even the pain and the slip-ups and the mistakes are all part of the journey, and that there’s truth and growth, wisdom and deeper empathy and connection in all that,” he said.
Harbour and Brown will return to screens later this month in the much-anticipated fifth and final season of Stranger Things. The first four episodes land on Netflix on 26 November, followed by three episodes on Christmas Day, and the feature-length finale on New Year’s Eve.
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