Jenna Ortega, who rose to fame with her role in Netflix’s hit series ‘Wednesday’ and is gearing up for the release of ‘Beetlejuice 2’ this fall, has opened up about her decision to leave X (formerly Twitter). In a revealing interview on the ‘New York Times’ podcast ‘The Interview,’ the actress, who has been working in the entertainment industry since she was nine years old, shared her harrowing experiences on the social media platform.
While acknowledging the potential benefits of AI, Ortega expressed her deep discomfort with the platform. She revealed that despite starting an account on the advice of others, she was deeply disturbed by the content she encountered. ‘I started a Twitter account because people said I should, but I was 14 when I saw pictures of myself as a child that had been edited in a sexually explicit way,’ she shared, calling it ‘horrifying’ and ‘immoral.’ The actress also detailed her experiences with inappropriate messages, stating, ‘The first time I opened my DMs, I was 12 and a man sent me a picture of his genitalia. That was just the beginning.’
It was these repeated negative experiences that ultimately led Ortega to abandon X. She stated, ‘I had an account because I was told I had to have one to build my image, but after the show [Wednesday] came out, I started getting so many stupid photos and images and I just couldn’t deal with it anymore, so I finally just quit two or three years ago and I deleted it all because it was just a mess.’ She went on to describe the messages as ‘disgusting,’ ‘made me feel sick,’ and ‘made me uncomfortable.’
Ortega, whose career has been on a steady upward trajectory since her television debut in 2012, shared how the rising fame has made managing her mental health and anxiety increasingly challenging. Her decision to leave X became a step in learning to protect herself. ‘I had to be really careful to not let myself get overwhelmed by everything I saw and read in the news or just let it consume me, because I’m very prone to self-critique and I can easily kill myself,’ she revealed. ‘I just want to enjoy myself right now, have fun! I should, but I don’t. I’m trying not to forget that.’
