Actress Kelly Marie Tran has decided to quit social media after being subjected to months of racial and sexual harassment over her role in “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.”
Actress Kelly Marie Tran has decided to quit social media after being subjected to months of racial and sexual harassment over her role in “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.”
The 29-year-old scrubbed her entire Instagram account on Tuesday, leaving only her profile picture and bio — which now features a poignant note.
“Afraid, but doing it anyway,” the bio reads.
Tran had been getting ridiculed for months by social media users for her groundbreaking portrayal of Rose Tico, the Resistance engineer who helped Finn take on the First Order in “Last Jedi” — the first woman of color in the “Star Wars” universe.
After the film’s release in December, “fans” began harassing the Vietnamese-American actress over Rose’s ethnicity and some even chose to change her name on FANDOM wiki pages, such as Wookieepedia.
“Ching Chong Wing Tong,” her bio read at one point, according to the Huffington Post.
Others chose to change Rose’s character description to say racist and callous things, including “stupid, autistic and retarded.”
Tran, however, received an outpouring of support from Twitter users on Tuesday as word spread about her social media sabbatical.
“If you followed Kelly Marie Tran on Instagram then you know she has been one of the loveliest and most positive souls on the goddamn internet in the past year and I will FIGHT every last person who hurt her,” quipped one person.
“You can dislike a film, You can dislike a character But anyone who insulted Kelly Marie Tran is simply not a true Star Wars Fan,” another said.
“Last Jedi” director Rian Johnson also responded to the news of Tran leaving Instagram.
“On social media a few unhealthy people can cast a big shadow on the wall, but over the past 4 years I’ve met lots of real fellow SW fans,” he said. “We like & dislike stuff but we do it with humor, love & respect. We’re the VAST majority, we’re having fun & doing just fine.”
For years, Tran chose to stay away from social media — in fear that she’d get ripped to shreds.
“Guys, can I tell you a secret? I avoided public social media for a long time purely because I was afraid. I was terrified of being picked apart, of being scrutinized, of being seen,” the actress wrote in an IG caption last October, when she was still relatively unknown.
“It took me a year of self-work — and some really amazing, supportive friends — to make me realize that it’s none of my business if people like me or not,” Tran said. “It doesn’t change my goals, my dreams, what I want to do with the opportunities I’ve been given.”
Tran’s departure from Instagram makes her the second “Star Wars” actress to leave social media due to online harassment. Daisy Ridley, who plays Rey, deleted her page back in 2016 after getting hounded by users over her stance on gun control.
“I posted a thing about gun regulations, because I was at an event in tribute to the Orlando shooting at Pulse,” Ridley later explained during an interview with Glamour. “People weren’t nice about how I looked. And I was like, ‘I’m out.’ Simple as that. That is not what I signed up for.”
