Moses Ingram, who stars as Reva Sevander in Disney’s new Obi-Wan Kenobi series, has addressed the racist hate messages she’s been receiving online from certain Star Wars fan upset with her character. Ingram spoke about the issue during an Instagram Live stream.
“Long story short, there are hundreds of those. Hundreds,” she said, after showing several examples of racist messages. “And I also see those of you out there who put on a cape for me and that really does mean the world to me because, you know, there’s nothing anybody can do about this. There’s nothing anybody can do to stop this hate. And so I question my purposes even being here in front of you saying that this is happening.”
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Ingram continued: “I don’t really know. I don’t really know. But I think the thing that bothers me is that sort of this feeling that I’ve had inside of myself. This feeling that no one has told me, but I just got to shut up and take it. I just got to bury it. And I’m not built like that. So I really just wanted to come on, I think, and say thank you to the people who show up for me in the comments and the places I’m not going to put myself. And to the rest of y’all, y’all weird.”
Ingram isn’t the first actor of color to receive substantial backlash after being cast in the Star Wars universe. Both John Boyega and Kelly Marie Tran have spoken publically about receiving hate messages over the years. The two actors were cast in the series’ sequel trilogy.
Obi-Wan Kenobi debuted on Disney+ on May 27 with two episodes, while subsequent episodes are being released weekly. In the show, Hayden Christensen and Ewan McGregor both reprise their roles from the prequel trilogy.
Check out Ingram’s video from Instagram Live below.
[Via]