Kelly Marie Tran has "truly" been happier without social media.
Kelly Marie Tran
The 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' actress deleted her Instagram account in 2018 after being subjected to racist trolls for her part in the science fiction franchise and she insists being off the platform is much better for her.
Speaking about her decision, she said: "I’ve truly just been so much happier without being on the internet. I’ve had my agents tell me I’m forgoing brand partnerships, but I’m not here to sell flat-tummy tea to young girls."
And the 32-year-old star also opened up about the relationship between mental health and fame and feels that being off social media has helped to "protect" herself and allowed her to continue in Hollywood as an actress.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, she added: "We can talk about the interaction between mental health and social media, but also mental health and this idea of fame and what it does to you. It is not normal. For me, that navigation is about how I protect myself in a way where I can continue to work in this world, and continue to lift the stories that I feel like the world needs to hear."
Kelly previously insisted she refuses to be marginalised by online trolls.
She explained: "It wasn't their words, it's that I started to believe them. Their words seemed to confirm what growing up as a woman and a person of colour already taught me: that I belonged in margins and spaces, valid only as a minor character in their lives and stories. And those words awakened something deep inside me - a feeling I thought I had grown out of ...
"Their words reinforced a narrative I had heard my whole life: that I was 'other,' that I didn't belong, that I wasn't good enough, simply because I wasn't like them. And that feeling, I realise now, was, and is, shame, a shame for the things that made me different, a shame for the culture from which I came from."