Jenna Ortega has revealed that she quit using Twitter/X after coming across AI-generated sexually explicit images of herself as a teenager.
Speaking to The New York Times, the Wednesday actress said that she was told to make an account on the social media platform to build her image early on in her career. But, after coming across the “absurd images and photos”, she deleted her account two years ago.
“I hate AI,” she said. “I mean, here’s the thing: AI could be used for incredible things. I think I saw something the other day where they were saying that artificial intelligence was able to detect breast cancer four years before it progressed. That’s beautiful. Let’s keep it to that.
“Did I like being 14 and making a Twitter account because I was supposed to and seeing dirty edited content of me as a child? No. It’s terrifying. It’s corrupt. It’s wrong.”
Ortega also said that unwanted, “disgusting” messages also contributed to her decision to quit the platform. She recalled an incident when, aged 12, she got her first direct message from a social media follower which “was an unsolicited photo of a man’s genitals, and that was just the beginning of what was to come.”
“It was disgusting, and it made me feel bad. It made me feel uncomfortable,” she continued. “Anyway, that’s why I deleted it, because I couldn’t say anything without seeing something like that. So one day I just woke up, and I thought, ‘Oh, I don’t need this anymore.’ So I dropped it.”
The actress is currently promoting her role in Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, which is the follow-up to the 1988 cult classic and comes out in cinemas on September 4. It sees director Tim Burton and stars Michael Keaton, Ryder and Catherine O’Hara returning to the franchise alongside newcomers Ortega, Willem Dafoe and Monica Bellucci.
Ortega has spoken about the close friendship that she developed with Ryder on the set of the film. “Obviously joining a sequel to something and it being so long since the original, I think I just wanted to put my head down and do the work and show up and be respectful and read my little book book off to the side,” she said.
“But I think Winona was so warm and so welcoming, as was Catherine [O’Hara], as was everybody else, that you almost didn’t have a choice but to become a part of the family, which I’m so grateful for because I think that in shooting and working together and Tim’s playful spirit, I felt like everything that we were doing felt like we were all in on the same joke or on the same page or had the same ideas.”
“It just felt like a free and collaborative space, but Winona and I — I swear we just started talking one day on set and then never stopped,” she continued. “You could find us in the same position four hours later never having moved. She’s the best.”
Ortega recently co-starred in the horror-inspired music video for Sabrina Carpenter’s latest single ‘Taste’.
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