Movies & TV / News

Kelly Marie Tran Leaves Social Media Due to Harassment

June 6, 2018 | Posted by Jeffrey Harris
Kelly Marie Tran John Boyega Star Wars: The Last Jedi Image Credit: Lucasfilm

Star Wars: The Last Jedi actor Kelly Marie Tran has opted out of social media after receiving harassment of supposed “fans” of the franchise for months on the platforms. An unofficial Star Wars fan account put out that Tran had deleted all of her posts from her Instagram account.

Tran’s Instagram page now just has a black and white profile photo and bio that reads, “Afraid, but doing it anyway.”

Tran portrays Rose Tico in Star Wars: The Last Jedi. She’s the first ethnic female lead character for the franchise. Some so-called fans have been highly critical of Tran’s appearing in the movie, including her looks and Asian ethnicity.

At one point, the Wookieepedia page for her character was even altered by contributors with offensive, racist remarks. The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson weighed in on social media trolls on Twitter yesterday, writing, “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. We like & dislike stuff but we do it with humor, love & respect. We’re the VAST majority, we’re having fun & doing just fine.”

You can see his series of tweets on the subject below. There are also tweets of support from a number of actors and peers for Kelly Marie Tran, which you can also see below.