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.”
Tran, who played Rose Tico, faced vitriol from toxic fans for being “the most useless character” in the film, which also received criticism for “forcing diversity” and a petition to be deleted from the franchise.
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.”
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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.
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)
