While Kelly Marie Tran has not made a social media comeback, the Vietnamese American star has already moved past the backlash she had received for her casting in “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.”
Amid all the cyberbullying, Tran scrubbed her Instagram account clean. She also opted to undergo therapy, which she only revealed last year while promoting the sequel trilogy’s third installment, “The Rise of Skywalker.”
Subscribe to NextShark's Newsletter
A daily dose of Asian America's essential stories, in under 5 minutes.
Get our collection of Asian America's most essential stories to your inbox daily for free.
Last month, Tran told Entertainment Weekly that quitting social media has been her “best decision ever.” She suspects that some people are still shocked over her choice, but she believes she only did what was best for herself and feels great about it.
Tran attends the “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” European Premiere at Cineworld Leicester Square on Dec. 18, 2019 in London. Image via Getty
In a new interview with The New Paper, the 31-year-old shared that she no longer thinks about her experience, but acknowledged that it helped her evolve as a human being.
“I don’t really think about it that much anymore, it has been a couple of years. It’s just like anything else — you process it, and you move forward,” Tran told the outlet. “It was a crazy time in my life. I learnt a lot from the whole experience — all of the good things and the few bad things have made me better. I have absolutely evolved as a human being. ‘Star Wars’ was sort of me growing up, in a way.”
Tran reportedly admitted that she cannot bring herself to make a comeback yet. However, she has been “writing captions and sending photos” to the Instagram page of “Raya and the Last Dragon,” the new Disney animated movie she stars in.
Being of Vietnamese descent, Tran feels honored to lead the movie, which showcases Southeast Asian cultures.
“I’m really excited for (South-east Asian) people to be able to sort of view themselves in a movie like this. I know that’s a very powerful experience for me whenever I experienced it,” Tran told The New Paper.
Featured Images via Star Wars (left; screenshot) and Getty (right; cropped)
Many people might not know this, but NextShark is a small media startup that runs on no outside funding or loans, and with no paywalls or subscription fees, we rely on help from our community and readers like you.
Everything you see today is built by Asians, for Asians to help amplify our voices globally and support each other. However, we still face many difficulties in our industry because of our commitment to accessible and informational Asian news coverage.
We hope you consider making a contribution to NextShark so we can continue to provide you quality journalism that informs, educates, and inspires the Asian community. Even a $1 contribution goes a long way. Thank you for supporting NextShark and our community.