At only twenty-five years old, Chloe Grace Moretz experienced a harsh reality of cyberbullying when an unkind meme about her body dysmorphia went viral. The famous actress was compared to a cartoon character from Family Guy and the insult sent her into such distress that she felt compelled to withdraw from the public eye in order to recuperate emotionally. It is truly heartbreaking how cruel people can be online and it goes without saying that this type of behavior should never be tolerated or taken lightly.
“I basically became a recluse,” she said.
In a chat with Hunger magazine, the 25-year old actress revealed how adversely the meme impacted her. The harsh meme got to Moretz and consequently caused her to struggle from body dymorphia as well as lots of nervousness about her look and public persona.
“I just remember sitting there and thinking, ‘My body is being used as a joke, and it’s something that I can’t change about who I am, and it is being posted all over Instagram,’” she said.
For the past decade, paparazzi photographers have been relentlessly following Moretz in an attempt to take pictures of her at every outing. Be it a stroll around town or running errands, there is no limit as to how far they will go for that perfect shot. With over two decades of acting experience under her belt, Moretz has certainly seen it all during this tumultuous time period.
“There’s always gonna be the darkness that comes with fame,” she stated. “When Kick-Ass came out, I was 12 years old, and I think from that point forward, everything shifted.”
Despite all of her accomplishments in Hollywood, Mortez was unable to endure the cruel and hurtful memes that mocked her physical appearance – something she had no power over. She found it utterly unbearable to be continuously ridiculed for an aspect of herself she could not alter.
She fondly remembered the day she became cognizant of her newfound fame “I remember the day I became aware of it,” she said. “And it hit me like a ton of bricks. I was 18 and doing a red carpet. I walked off of it, and I felt so much self-loathing and was really confused about the experience that just went down. I was really unwell after that. There was this complete jarring shift in my consciousness. I questioned who I was. What am I doing? Who am I? Why am I doing this? Like, what does this mean?”
Through many hours of therapy, she has become the powerful individual she is today.
“I had to work through that,” she stated. “For a long time, I was able to be the Chloë that people see and the Chloë that I am in private. Then those two worlds collided, and I felt really raw and vulnerable and open. And then came the onslaught of horrific memes that started getting sent to me about my body. I’ve actually never really talked about this, but there was one meme that really affected me, of me walking into a hotel with a pizza box in my hand. And this photo got manipulated into a character from Family Guy with the long legs and the short torso, and it was one of the most widespread memes at the time.”
“Everyone was making fun of my body, and I brought it up with someone, and they were like, ‘Oh, shut the fuck up, it’s funny.’ And I just remember sitting there and thinking, my body is being used as a joke, and it’s something that I can’t change about who I am, and it is being posted all over Instagram. It was something so benign as walking into a hotel with leftovers. And to this day, when I see that meme, it’s something very hard for me to overcome.”
