Jenna Ortega discusses being sent ‘inappropriate edited images’ as a child: ‘Disgusting’
Jenna Ortega has opened up about the increasing issue of explicit AI-generated images.
The “Wednesday” actress, 21, shared in an interview on The New York Times’ “The Interview” podcast that she decided to leave X, previously known as Twitter, after encountering fake sexual images of herself produced by AI.
“Did I enjoy being 14, creating a Twitter account, and then seeing edited explicit content featuring me as a child? Absolutely not. It’s frightening. It’s corrupt. It’s unacceptable. It’s disgusting,” she remarked.
She explained that she chose to delete her account because of the overwhelming number of “absurd images and photos” that appeared after the debut of Netflix’s “Wednesday” in 2022.
“It’s incredibly repulsive, and I was already feeling confused, so I just opted to delete it because it was unnecessary and I didn’t want to deal with that,” she mentioned. “It was just awful and made me feel uncomfortable. I don’t want to see that type of content every day.”
Ortega also recounted that the first direct message she received at the age of 12 was “an unsolicited photo of a man’s private parts,” which she viewed as merely the start of a troubling trend. She no longer maintains an account on X, but she is active on Instagram.
This year, a slew of sexually explicit AI images of Taylor Swift circulated on X, causing significant backlash. Many of these images were taken down for violating the platform’s guidelines.
After her roles in the Disney Channel series “Stuck in the Middle” and movies like “Scream” and “The Fallout,” Ortega gained widespread recognition with “Wednesday,” which became a major success for Netflix in 2022.
She is set to star alongside Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” a highly anticipated sequel directed by Tim Burton, which will premiere in theaters on Sept. 6.
During her appearance on the “Interview” podcast, Ortega reflected on the challenges of being a young celebrity.
“I feel so unprepared,” she expressed. “My prefrontal cortex isn’t even fully developed yet. I want to make mistakes and learn from them, but at the same time, I wish to be overly confident and take risks. Now there’s a lot more at risk, whether I like it or not.”
The “Scream VI” actress previously addressed the negative aspects of social media during an interview as part of Variety’s Actors on Actors series in 2023.
“Social media really messes with our generation, turning it into a constant comparison game,” she said. “It encourages a bandwagon mentality and is quite manipulative.”
Contributing: Edward Segarra