Naomi Ackie, the actor who portrays Jannah in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, has addressed her experience with Star Wars regarding racism and social media. Ackie entered the Star Wars galaxy at a tumultuous time for the franchise, when the sequel trilogy was causing deep division within and loud outcry from the fandom. One unfortunate yet prevalent issue during this time was the racist backlash that actors such as John Boyega and Kelly Marie-Tran were facing, leading the latter to delete her Instagram entirely. Now, Ackie has opened up about how this affected her life when joining Star Wars.

Speaking to THR, Ackie reveals that she received advice early on from “insiders” to delete her Instagram prior to her Star Wars casting even being announced. She explains that she had heard “that anyone of color would get wrapped up in some racist sh**,” and that “I didn’t want to have a place for them to come with their comments.” Ackie ultimately decided to delete her Instagram, but after she managed to dodge the kind of backlash she references here, she was encouraged by Disney to return to the platform once again.

Still, Ackie had a hard time with social media in the wake of Star Wars. It earned her an official verification from Instagram, which came with plenty of new followers – something that increased the pressure for her, even if “it was fine and I sat with that for a bit” at the time the movie initially came out. This, along with “doomscrolling” that threatened to heighten Ackie’s insecurity, led her to truly get rid of Instagram once again.

How Has Star Wars Given Itself Such A Bad Reputation?

Racism Seems to be a Prevalent Issue in the Star Wars Fandom

Unfortunately, the warning Ackie was given about the racist backlash around her casting is all too real. Thankfully, she avoided it, but others haven’t been as lucky. Moses Ingram was another victim of racist backlash following her debut in 2022’s Obi-Wan Kenobi series, and currently, Amandla Stenberg is still experiencing the fallout of racist backlash from The Acolyte – especially now that the series has been canceled. This is an ongoing issue, which makes it more than reasonable that someone like Ackie would want to protect herself from such behavior.

It’s getting to the point where Star Wars itself is going to have to truly address what’s happening. Too many times have they remained silent about the fraction of the community that continually harasses actors like Boyega, Tran, Ingram, and Stenberg. They attempted to take steps towards it in 2022 by sharing a video of Ewan McGregor addressing racism, but even the words of Obi-Wan Kenobi himself haven’t helped to stave it off. Hopefully one day, there will be a world in which Star Wars doesn’t have this reputation of racist backlash attached to it anymore.