Kelly Marie Tran breaks silence about online harassment over Star Wars - Action News
Home WebMail Saturday, November 23, 2024, 10:19 AM | Calgary | -12.0°C | Regions Advertise Login | Our platform is in maintenance mode. Some URLs may not be available. |
Entertainment

Kelly Marie Tran breaks silence about online harassment over Star Wars

Kelly Marie Tran is breaking her silence about online harassment months after deleting her Instagram account. It 'wasn't their words, it's that I started to believe them,' said the Star Wars: The Last Jedi actor.
Kelly Marie Tran, the first woman of colour to have a lead role in a Star Wars film, is breaking her silence about being bullied off Instagram by misogynistic and racist messages. (Jordan Strauss/Invision/The Associated Press)

Kelly Marie Tran is breaking her silence about online harassment months after deleting her Instagram account.

In an essay published Tuesday in The New York Times, the Star Wars: The Last Jediactress wrote it "wasn't their words, it's that I started to believe them."

Tran deleted her Instagram account in June.

The bullying seemed to confirm what growing up as a woman and a person of colour had taught her, Tran wrote:that she belonged "in margins and spaces."

She started blaming herself and felt brainwashed into believing her existence was "limited to the boundaries of another person's approval," she continued.

Kelly Marie Tran appears opposite John Boyega in a scene from Star Wars: The Last Jedi. (Walt Disney Studios)

"I want to live in a world where people of all races, religions, socioeconomic classes, sexual orientations, gender identities and abilities are seen as what they have always been: human beings.This is the world I want to live in. And this is the world that I will continue to work toward."

She concluded: "You might know me as Kelly.I am the first woman of colour to have a leading role in a Star Warsmovie.I am the first Asian woman to appear on the cover of Vanity Fair.My real name is Loan. And I am just getting started."

Tran will reprise her role as Rose Tico in next year's Star Wars: Episode IX.