Taylor Lautner Was “Scared” to Go to a Grocery Store for 10 Years

Many years before COVID-19, Taylor Lautner was already living in self-imposed isolation.

In a Jan. 27 interview with his friend Jason Kennedy for NBC’s Today show, the 29-year-old actor recalled being thrust into the spotlight as a teenager following fans’ borderline obsession with the Twilight franchise. After his breakout as buff werewolf Jacob in the first 2008 film, he avoided grocery stores, malls and especially movie theaters for an entire decade.

“I went so many years either not leaving my house, or if I did, hat, sunglasses, and just like, [feeling] scared,” Lautner said. “It built up something inside of me where, I didn’t know it, but I was scared to go out. I’d get super anxious to go out. So I just didn’t.”

At the time he was in his late teens and when he’d try go on a date or even just a walk, “twelve cars would be waiting outside my house to follow me wherever I’m going,” he detailed. When he showed up at an airport, there were “thousands of fans screaming.”