Kelly Marie Tran has been living her life to the fullest since leaving social media and has no desire to restore her online presence anytime soon. When her breakout role as Rose Tico in Star Wars: The Last Jedi brought Kelly Marie Tran great fame, along with it came a plethora of internet trolls harassing the actress with vitriolic posts on social media. Tran stopped posting on her Instagram account in 2018 as a response and hasn’t looked back ever since.
Reflecting on the online bullying she endured, Tran has revealed how much happier she has been since her decision to step away from the internet. Speaking about the ordeal in a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Tran explains why she isn’t coming back to Instagram anytime soon, even though her agents tell her she’s missing out on a lot of money.
“What’s interesting to me about working in this industry is that certain things become so public, even if you don’t really mean them to be, [like] the succession of events in which I left the internet for my own sanity. It was basically me being like, ‘Oh, this isn’t good for my mental health. I’m obviously going to leave this.’ .. 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.”
Tran admits that she engages in “one-sided social media,” meaning she pays attention to current events and what’s trending online, though she still enforces “extreme limits” on herself when looking up reactions to her own work. As Kelly explains, this is simply a measure she has imposed upon herself to avoid letting trolls on social media affect her mental health.
“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.”
Meanwhile, Tran is gearing up for the release of Raya and the Last Dragon, the new animated movie from Walt Disney Pictures featuring the voice of Tran as the titular Raya. Awkwafina co-stars athe Sisu, Raya’s dragon pal, with the voice cast also including Gemma Chan, Daniel Dae Kim, Sandra Oh, Benedict Wong, and Alan Tudyk. The movie will be released in theaters on March 5 and will simultaneously be available on Disney+ with Premier Access.
Tran’s voiceover work has also gotten her a role in the upcoming Disney series Monsters at Work, a spinoff of the Monsters, Inc. movie franchise. She’ll be playing Val Little alongside returning stars John Goodman and Billy Crystal reprising their respective roles as Sulley and Mike. The new series will be making its premiere on Disney+ on July 2.
Clearly, Tran has been thriving since scrubbing social media from her life. Perhaps there are others who could learn from Tran’s example. This news comes to us from The Hollywood Reporter.