Actress Kelly Marie Tran, who plays Rose Tico in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, deleted or hid her Instagram posts, raising speculation that it was due to harassment.
The actress has not publicly commented on her reasoning for deleting or hiding the posts, but her bio on the social media platform says, “Afraid, but doing it anyway.”
Star Wars: The Last Jedi was the first major role for the 29-year-old Tran, the first Asian-American woman to have a lead part in a Star Wars franchise. The Vietnamese-American began receiving online racist abuse starting in December 2017 when The Last Jedi premiered, HuffPost reported at the time.
In December, a user edited the Rose Tico bio on the Star Wars FANDOM page Wookieepedia to include racist and derogatory slurs, including changing the character’s name to “Ching Chong Wing Tong.”
https://twitter.com/swankmotron/status/943171540312453120?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.newsweek.com%2Fracist-rose-tico-wookieepedia-page-753063
“FANDOM has a zero tolerance policy for vandalism, inclusive of racism and harassment,” the site told Newsweek in December, adding that the user has been banned from the site. “The wiki admins take this very seriously and took the steps to resolve this situation as quickly as possible, including escalation to our team, and subsequent lockdown. This lockdown will remain for the foreseeable future and we will be closely monitoring activity on this wiki.”
Tran and her character Tico were also targeted with abuse on Twitter.
Following the news that Tran had removed or hidden her Instagram posts, The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson condemned the harassment on Twitter. And actor Mark Hamill, who plays Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars franchise, tweeted a photo with Tran saying “What’s not to love? #GetALifeNerds.”
What's not to love?#GetALifeNerds pic.twitter.com/k1sa0X1qpg
— Mark Hamill (@MarkHamill) June 6, 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
Fortune did not receive any immediate response from Instagram and Lucasfilm to a request for comment.
