Kelly Marie Tran Breaks Silence On Harassment That Forced Her Off Instagram

Three months ago, Kelly Marie Tran abruptly wiped her Instagram account clean. At the time, the 29-year-old actress offered no official explanation for her decision. Many speculated that Tran left social media as a result of persistent harassment from Star Wars fans after the release of Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi in December 2017. Tran was the first woman of color to be cast as a leading role in the Star Wars franchise and the inclusion of her character, resistance newcomer Rose Tico, resulted in months of racist and sexists comments left on her personal Instagram account. 

Tran broke her silence on the harassment that forced her off Instagram in an essay published by the New York Times on Tuesday (Aug. 21). “It wasn’t their words, it’s that I started to believe them,” Tran wrote in her first person essay. "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."

Over the course of the essay, Tran opens up about other experiences that marginalized her throughout her life. She says those instances taught her that, "I was 'other,' that I didn't belong, that I wasn't good enough, simply because I wasn't like them." The harassment that followed the release of The Last Jedi wasn't anything new for Tran - it was just the same thing she'd been dealing with her entire life, only on a much larger scale this time. “For months, I went down a spiral of self-hate, into the darkest recesses of my mind, places where I tore myself apart, where I put their words above my own self-worth,” Tran writes.

But Tran, who many of her friends and co-workers describe as endlessly kind and optimistic, did not let this defeat her. “And that feeling, I realize now, was, and is, shame, a shame for the things that made me different, a shame for the culture from which I came from,” Tran writes. “And to me, the most disappointing thing was that I felt it at all.”

Now, though, Tran is looking forward to a world “where children of color don’t spend their entire adolescence wishing to be white. I want to live in a world where women are not subjected to scrutiny for their appearance, or their actions, or their general existence. 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."

Tran concluded her essay with a powerfully poignant message: 

You might know me as Kelly.

I am the first woman of color to have a leading role in a “Star Wars” movie.

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 return to the Star Wars franchise as Rose Tico in the final installment of the latest trilogy in 2019...haters be damned. 

Photo: Getty


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