Jenna Ortega quit Twitter after getting 'disgusting' messages and explicit AI photos of herself as a teen

"It's terrifying. It's corrupt. It's wrong," said the "Wednesday" star.

Jenna Ortega is opening up about the dark side of child stardom she has experienced in the social media age.

The Beetlejuice Beetlejuice actress, who began her career at the age of 9, reflected on the moment she came face-to-face with disturbing A.I.-generated content using her likeness — and she didn’t mince words about the effects it had on her.

"I hate AI," she told The New York Times in the latest episode of The Interview podcast. "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."

But, she continued, "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."

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Ortega compared the technology to "Pandora’s box," saying, "It's out there now. We're gonna have to deal with the consequences."

The star added that she was confronted with explicit content even before the recent deluge of AI imagery. "One of the first — actually the first DM that I ever opened myself 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 Wednesday.

"I used to have that Twitter account and I was told that, 'Oh, you got to do it, you got to build your image,'" she said. "I ended up deleting it about two, three years ago because of the influx after the show had come out, these absurd images and photos, and I already was in a confused state that I just deleted it."

She said of the messages, "It was disgusting, and it made me feel bad. It made me feel uncomfortable."

Ortega then had a revelation. "One day I just woke up, and I thought, 'Oh, I don't need this anymore.' So I dropped it." Stepping away from Twitter, she said, was part of her "learning" to protect herself.

Related: Jenna Ortega reflects on Wednesday writers backlash: 'I probably could have used my words better'

The actress got her start in 2012 and landed small parts on sitcoms and a brief appearance in Iron Man 3. She reached a new level of fame playing the young version of Gina Rodriguez' titular character on the series Jane the Virgin and the lead in the Disney Channel Original Stuck in the Middle. In recent years, she has cemented her status as a modern-day scream queen with turns in films like 2022's Scream, Studio 666, and X. Her role in Wednesday, however, propelled her to the big leagues.

While acknowledging her appreciation for the sudden fame, Ortega admitted that it has made managing her mental health and insecurities "much, much harder."

"I'm really working on not being so self-critical or just killing myself over things that in the grand scheme of the world with the news and things you see, it's really just not important at all," Ortega said. "I should be having so much fun right now. So much fun! And I don't. And I should. And I try to remind myself of that."

Hear more of Ortega's thoughts on her childhood stardom in the podcast episode above.

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.