Like many people, Julia Roberts is not a fan of online trolls. The cruel comments, the demeaning criticism, the petty personal attacks -- it's never fun to be ruthlessly picked on, particularly from complete strangers typing away with abandonment behind a keyboard or on their phones. Anyone can find themselves the victim of vicious online taunting. Even high-profile celebrities can get their feelings hurt on a regular basis. That includes Julia Roberts.
Julia Roberts was recently the subject of intensely discouraging online commenting. Suffice to say, she wasn't a fan. As the Academy Award-winning actress recently noted, when she found herself at the root of demeaning comments on Emma Roberts' Instagram, she was hurt by the rude comments, particularly the ones that took criticism to her looks and appearance. In fact, Roberts found herself questing why her niece posted it in the first place. Roberts said:
One weekend morning Emma slept over, and we got up and were having tea and playing cards and having this beautiful morning, and then a couple of days later she posted a picture of us. And the number of people who felt absolutely required to talk about how terrible I looked in the picture -- that I'm not aging well, that I look like a man, why would she even post a picture like this when I look that terrible! And I was amazed at how that made me feel.
The confessional conversation came up when Oprah Winfrey interviewed Julia Roberts for Harper's Bazaar. During the celebrity-on-celebrity interview, which touched on a number of topics, including Roberts' forthcoming Amazon series, Homecoming, and her new movie, Ben is Back, Oprah and Julia talked about the actress' recent social media appearance on Instagram. When Roberts admits she's not self-conscious, these comments were hurtful. Roberts continued:
I'm a 50-year-old woman and I know who I am, and still my feelings got hurt. I was sad that people couldn't see the point of it, the sweetness of it, the absolute shining joy of that photo. I thought, 'What if I was 15?'
As the Instagram photo from Emma Roberts showcases, it was a fairly innocent and goodnatured snapshot between an aunt and her niece that was criticized rather ruthlessly by the online commenters. These users seemed to believe they were entitled to comment on Julia Roberts' appearance since she's a rich celebrity. While the famous actress doesn't take the comments too close to heart, Roberts does find herself wondering how younger people feel when they receive demeaning or perhaps even abusive comments of this variety whenever they're on the social media forum themselves.
Thankfully, there are a number of very positive comments on the social media post as well, which hopefully Julia Roberts appreciates. It's never easy to receive mean personal attacks, particularly from people who know you but you don't know them, and hopefully, she doesn't take their words seriously.
Homecoming premieres on Amazon on November 2. Ben is Back, meanwhile, comes into theaters on December 7.
