Movies & TV / News
Kelly Marie Tran Leaves Social Media Due to Harassment
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.
Kelly Marie Tran has deleted all the posts off her Instagram due to months of harassment she has received for her character Rose in #TheLastJedi pic.twitter.com/ipxdbDH30C
— Star Wars Facts (@SWTweets) June 5, 2018
What we talk about when we talk about manbabies
— Rian Johnson (@rianjohnson) June 5, 2018
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. https://t.co/yhcShg5vdJ
— Rian Johnson (@rianjohnson) June 5, 2018
Done with this disingenuous bullshit. You know the difference between not liking a movie and hatefully harassing a woman so bad she has to get off social media. And you know which of those two we’re talking about here.
— Rian Johnson (@rianjohnson) June 5, 2018
Your “implication” was not an implication at all, it was explicitly stated in your tweet: you’re conflating critiquing a movie with being an abusive asshole to people online, when it’s clear as day they are two seperate things & we’re condemning the latter and not the former.
— Rian Johnson (@rianjohnson) June 5, 2018
Sad to hear about Kelly Marie Tran being bullied off of instagram. She was great in the movie. IMHO, fandom should be about inclusion and sharing the love of something that we passionately care about.
— Masi Oka (@MasiOka) June 5, 2018
Last year I had the distinct pleasure of meeting the beautiful #KellyMarieTran at Star Wars Celebration. You would be hard pressed to find a more genuinely kind & sweet soul. I can assure you that if this is the kind of person you feel the need to harass it is you who is empty. pic.twitter.com/clGZFSe9PT
— Josh Gad (@joshgad) June 5, 2018
i ♥️ #kellymarietran and her incredible work in The Last Jedi.
— Elijah Wood (@elijahwood) June 6, 2018
I totally embarrassingly fanned out when I met Kelly Marie Tran. Rose Tico was unequivocally one of the highlights of The Last Jedi. You’d have to be an idiot to disagree with that.
— Kumail Nanjiani (@kumailn) June 5, 2018
Anyway, I hope Kelly Marie Tran is okay, because she's awesome. And I hope all of you out there dealing with this kind of harassment are okay, too.
Be well, humans. Stay good. pic.twitter.com/QGK8jtpUaf
— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) June 5, 2018