According to actress Naomi Ackie, a warning from insiders that her casting in The Rise of Skywalker would lead to her getting “wrapped up in some racist s–t” from Star Wars fans led to her decision to fully delete her Instagram account.
The actress, who in the truly terrible film portrays former Stormtrooper and brief Resistance ally Jannah (the character perhaps better known to fans as the young woman whom Lando invites to explore the galaxy with him at the end of the film – recalled the circumstances behind her leaving the social media platform during a recent interview given to The Hollywood Reporter’s Sija Rankin in promotion of her recent appearance in Zoe Kravity’z Blink Twice.
Amidst a reflection of her overall career, Ackie revealed to Rankin that following her casting in J.J. Abrams’ widely-panned film, she voluntarily chose to delete her Instagram account because “I had heard that anyone of color would get wrapped up in some racist s–t.”
Making reference to an apparent wave of backlash leveled towards sequel trilogy star John Boyega faced following his casting as Finn, the actress explained that she left the platform because “I didn’t want to have a place for them to come with their comments.”
However, at the behest of Disney (and with the assistance of their massive PR machine working overtime to inundate her with positive public feedback), she would eventually give the platform another, albeit unsuccessful, go.
“[Disney] did some sort of magic thing where I instantly got the checkmark [verification] and all these followers, and then Star Wars came out, and it was fine and I sat with that for a bit. But then I eventually found myself scrolling too much, comparing myself to other people and becoming jealous, sad and depressed.”
“I started putting stuff on my page that was attention-seeking,” said Ackie. “Trying to be funny on my Insta stories, or trying to be hot, trying to be a thirst trap from my fucking house share that I lived in with three other guys. It was like, what the f–k, this is not working at all and I don’t feel good about it. I eventually realized it was time to get rid of it properly.”
However, it seems this ‘proper’ deletion would ultimately be short-lived, the actress has since reactivated her account and appears to be using it semi-regularly to promote her work (most recently the aforementioned Don’t Blink).
Interestingly, it should be noted that in the face of the constantly-pushed-Disney narrative that every non-white actor cast in a Star Wars project has been the target of widespread racist harassment, Ackie apparently tried to make the only ‘winning’ move and actually leave Instagram all together, only for the House of Mouse themselves to insist that she continue leaving herself open to such apparently guaranteed vitriol.
Further, the actress never claims, despite spending a significant time on the platform following her Star Wars casting, that she ever received any ‘racist harassment’ of her own (which, given how the internet operates, would inevitably have gotten through even despite Disney’s best protective PR measures).
As such, her own experience provides a counter to Disney’s claims that the larger franchise fan base, particularly those who do not like its current era, is composed of nothing more than bigots looking to keep women and minorities away from their sandbox.
Ah well. That surely won’t stop them – or at least their fans, as seen with the recent grieving over The Acolyte‘s cancellation – from trying to pull that card any time one of their projects does terribly with audiences.
