Millie Bobby Brown hits back at bullies who forced her off Twitter
Millie Bobby Brown takes on the haters (mtv/youtube)
Millie Bobby Brown has spoken out against the bullies who caused her to delete her Twitter account, while picking up her MTV Movie & TV Award for Best Performance.
The star of Netflix’s Stranger Things deleted her account after a meme spread which depicted her as a murderous homophobe.
She put on a brave face for her Instagram story last week, posting a video of her smiling, winking and sticking her tongue out, all above a caption which read: “good vibes only.”
Millie Bobby Brown attends the 2018 Time 100 Gala (Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty)
But the 14-year-old actor had a longer message for her haters after winning Best Performance in a Show for her star turn in Stranger Things 2, appearing via a recorded message.
“Since I know there are many young people watching this – and even to the adults, too; they could probably use the reminder – that I was taught that if you don’t have anything nice to say, just don’t say it.”
Brown, who also won an MTV Award last year for Best Actor in a Show, added: “There should be no space in this world for bullying, and I’m not going to tolerate it, and neither should any of you.
Brown appeared on a recorded message (mtv/youtube)
“If you need a reminder of how worthy you are, and to rise above the hate, message me on Instagram.”
And she finished off her speech by winking at the audience and blowing a kiss, because she’s a bad-ass.
The meme’s recent rise in popularity – after it started out with the hateful hashtag #TakeDownMillieBobbyBrown – has seen it take on a deeply sinister tone.
Brown had a message for both kids and adults (mtv/youtube)
One popular tweet posted last month said “Millie bobby brown arriving at pride” above a video of someone driving a car into several protesters.
Many of the posts attribute obviously false quotes like “We don’t need gun control, we need faggot patrol” to the British star.
One tweet, for instance, shows a Snapchat post by the actor with “just ran over a faggot cant wait to kill all these gays off” photoshopped over it.
Posted by someone who called the original Snap – not this one – a “photoshop” (psychosociaal/twitter)
And another obviously doctored image says: “I hate the word homophobia. It’s not a phobia. Why would I be scared of a faggot?”
Terrible (godcyruss/twitter)
The star had 2.28 million followers before she deactivated the account.
There has been a backlash against the meme, especially since Brown deleted her account, with one user writing that “pretending millie bobby brown, a literal child, is a violent homophobe for memes is f**king disgusting and not funny at all.
Thank goodness for people like this (zunbarya/twitter)
“You are grown adults, editing photos of her with captions that include the f slur, violence against lgbt community for comedy and it’s f**king gross.”
They continue: “She is a f**king child and you are cracking jokes about her hating gay people and wanting to kill them when she hasn’t done anything wrong?
Millie Bobby Brown onstage at PaleyFest (Frazer Harrison/Getty)
“You could genuinely cause so much damage to her reputation and it’s weird as f**k.”
Another fan wrote that “yall evil as f**k for ruining millie bobby brown like this shes a literal angel and her career could end cause of some dumbasses who think using violent homophobic memes with a minor is funny.”
A lot of salient points here (neiboltst/twitter)
And one said – with receipts – that “MILLIE BOBBY BROWN SUPPORTS LGBTQ+.”
(losershawkins/twitter)
Brown’s exit from Twitter follows Stranger Things actor Noah Schnapp feeling like he had to clear up speculation over his character’s sexuality at the age of 12.
Schnapp wrote on Instagram after season one that he didn’t want Will to be stereotyped, and that his character’s sexual orientation was “besides the point.”
Watch Brown tell off the haters here:
