Jenna Ortega reveals receiving ‘repulsive’ edited child content of herself

Jenna Ortega is voicing her concerns over the increasing number of explicit AI-generated images.

The 21-year-old star of “Wednesday” opened up during an interview on The New York Times’ “The Interview” podcast. She recounted leaving X, formerly known as Twitter, after receiving fake pornographic pictures of herself created using AI.

“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?” she said. “No. It’s terrifying. It’s corrupt. It’s wrong. It’s disgusting.”

Ortega shared that the decision to delete her account was triggered by an uptick in “absurd images and photos” of herself following the release of the Netflix series “Wednesday” in 2022.

“It’s just so repulsive, and I already was in a confused state that I just deleted it because it was unnecessary and I didn’t need that,” she continued. “It was just disgusting, and it made me feel bad. It made me feel uncomfortable. It’s awful. Anyway, that’s why I deleted it, because I couldn’t say anything without seeing something like that, and I don’t need to be seeing that every day.”

Ortega also revealed the first direct message she opened at age 12 was an “unsolicited photo of a man’s genitals,” which she described as “just the beginning of what was to come.” She no longer maintains an official account on X but remains active on Instagram.

Earlier this year, a wave of sexually explicit AI images of Taylor Swift spread on X, resulting in widespread outrage. Many of these images were taken down for violating X’s policies.

After roles on Disney Channel’s “Stuck in the Middle” and in films like “Scream” and “The Fallout,” Ortega rose to greater fame with the release of “Wednesday,” which became a massive Netflix hit in 2022.

Her next project involves starring alongside Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” a highly anticipated sequel by Tim Burton, set to release on September 6.

In the “Interview” podcast, Ortega reflected on the pressures of being famous at such a young age.

“I’m so underdeveloped,” she shared. “My prefrontal cortex isn’t even fully there yet, technically, you know? I want to be making the mistakes and learning from them and falling on my face, and maybe the opposite: I want to be extremely confident, and try everything, and do everything, and be the biggest risk taker in the world. There’s a lot more at stake now, whether I like it or not.”

The “Scream VI” star had earlier opened up about the darker side of social media in a 2023 interview for Variety’s Actors on Actors series.

“Social media, what it does to anyone our age, it’s such a comparing game,” she said. “It almost influences bandwagon mentality. … It’s very manipulative.”

Source: USA TODAY