Jenna Ortega is opening up about the dark side of being a child star in the social media era.
The Beetlejuice actress, who began her career at age 9, reflected on the moment she came face to face with disturbing AI-generated content using her likeness, and wasn't mincing words about the impact it had on her.
“I hate AI,” she said on the latest episode of The New York Times podcast, “The Interview.” “AI could be used for incredible things. I think I saw the other day that artificial intelligence could detect breast cancer four years before it develops. That's amazing. Let's just leave it at that.”
But she added: “Did I, at 14, create a Twitter account because I had to, and enjoy looking at salacious edited content of myself as a child? No. It's horrifying. It's corrupting. It's wrong.”
Jenna Ortega.
Edward Bartello/Getty
Ortega likened the technology to “Pandora's box,” saying, “It's already out there and we have to deal with the consequences.”
Starr added that she'd been confronted with explicit content even before the recent deluge of AI images: “One of the first things, actually the first DM I ever opened on my own when I was 12, was an unsolicited photo of a man's genitals,” she said. “And that was just the beginning of what was to come.”
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She went on to explain her decision to deactivate her X (formerly Twitter) account following the success of her Netflix series on Wednesday.
“I used to have a Twitter account and people said, 'Yeah, go for it, build up your image,'” she says. “After the show aired I got so many ridiculous images and pictures of myself that I ended up deleting it a couple of years ago. It was already a mess, so I deleted it.”
“It was very unpleasant and upsetting. It made me feel uncomfortable,” she said of the message.
Ortega then had an epiphany: “I woke up one day and was like, 'Oh, I don't need this anymore,' so I quit.” Stepping away from Twitter was part of a “learning process” to protect herself, she said.
Jenna Ortega stars in 'Wednesday' on Netflix
Her acting career began in 2012, when she landed a small role on a sitcom and made a brief appearance in Iron Man 3. She gained new levels of fame when she played a younger version of Gina Rodriguez's character in the TV series Jane the Virgin and landed a starring role in the Disney Channel original Stuck in the Middle. In recent years, she's solidified her status as a modern-day scream queen with roles in films like 2022's Scream, Studio 666, and X. But it was her role in Wednesday that catapulted her into the big leagues.
While Ortega is grateful for her sudden fame, she acknowledges it has made it “much, much harder” to manage her mental health and anxiety.
“I'm really trying not to beat myself up or kill myself over things that are totally insignificant in the grand scheme of the world, like the news or things that I see,” Ortega said. “I should be having so much fun right now. So much fun! But I'm not. I should be. And I'm trying to remind myself of that.”
Hear more of Ortega's thoughts on childhood stardom in the podcast episode above.
