Kelly Marie Tran of ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ fame has opened up about her New York Times editorial regarding the online abuse she suffered. Tran spoke out while appearing at the Toronto Film Festival about her experience with online bullying at the hands of ‘Star Wars’ fans. She admits she may never return to social media.
Tran is just one of many stars who have fallen victim to online bullying. Tran and other stars like Daisy Ridley (who plays Rey in the franchise) were subjected to trolling on social media and took to deleting their accounts. When asked about her experience, she said:
“I think that there are, just like anything else, really good and really bad things that come with anything.”
Tran, who left social media behind in June, was asked if she would ever return. She said:
“I felt like I wanted to write something that was honest, that truly came from me, and I don’t know if I’ll ever go back.”
In her piece in the New York Times, Tran spoke openly about how the bullying made her feel, and that the words took her back to how she felt growing up. She wrote the following:
“It wasn’t their words, it’s that I started to believe them. Their words seemed to confirm what growing up as a woman and a person of color already taught me: that I belonged in margins and spaces, valid only as a minor character in their lives and stories.”
Tran took the hurtful situation and made it into a positive by using it as the subject of her latest project, ‘Sorry for Your Loss,’ a Facebook Watch original series. Fellow series star Elizabeth Olsen shared Tran’s enthusiasm over using the social media platform, saying:
“There are really good things that come out of having a community. Hopefully, what we are doing here, in terms of this project, will be illuminated by that.”
Of the show’s content, which features themes of grief and losing loved ones, Tran said:
“You can have these great discussions on a platform about something that maybe we can’t really talk about.”
Check out the trailer for ‘Sorry for Your Loss’ below!
