Erin Moriarty decided to leave social media after facing bullying and accusations of cosmetic surgery.
The Boys actress issued a statement on her Instagram Friday, after journalist and media personality Megyn Kelly made comments about Moriarty's appearance on her SiriusXM talk show.
On The Megyn Kelly Show podcast, Kelly accuses Moriarty of being addicted to plastic surgery. "More and more young women are doing this," Kelly said to her guest Michael Knowles, while sharing photos of the actress. "It’s not about an objection to plastic surgery, it’s about an obsession with turning yourself into this fake version of yourself... I find it like a sign of mental illness. I really want to get in the heads of these young girls and say, 'Please don’t do this.'"
Moriarty denied the former Fox host's claims in her statement on IG.
"This is something I truly never anticipated writing," the 29-year-old wrote. "We're all subject to levels of bullying throughout our lives but I am horrified, and I felt that I deserved to take a second to address these things."
Adding that she's experienced "one of the most challenging weeks of my life," Moriarty later directed her attention to Kelly.
"To receive a message about a disgustingly false, counterproductive to the degree of being ironically misogynistic video of Megyn Kelly commenting on the manner — to learn the widespread nature of this has left me horrified," she wrote.
According to Moriarty, the photo Kelly used to point out the actress's changed features was taken ten years ago, not "a year ago" as Kelly alleged.
"How utterly misinformed, inaccurate, and clickbait seeking people who we follow and consider to be informed is appalling," she continued. "I got my make up [sic] done that day and it involves major contouring and I remember leaving and feeling pretty. And even that day was an immensely stressful day for me. I came running to those girls and I showed up in tears after what had happened that day and I left feeling better simply because I felt like they had reduced my lack of sleep and worked their magic wands."
In addition to Kelly's statements, Moriarty "saw the comments, scathing enough to just turn my comments off" from other users.
"But this is becoming harassment. This is becoming false news," she added.
The New York native clarified that while her Instagram won't be deactivated, she gave fans a heads-up to "consider it deactivated."
"Social media is not something that came naturally to me and that was an investment of energy to connect with you guys. And I am horrified by the reaction, the reductive assumptions, and the aforementioned video that is a primary example of such harassment. It's broken my heart. You've broken my heart," she wrote. "But there's no excuse for these horrific allegations, the verbal abuse that I have had to delete, and genuinely false information that is being used to perpetuate a message that is exhibitionist feminism. You don't have to believe me when I say that these videos are absolutely false."
She concluded, "You never know what someone is going through, social media is a platform that is not representative of a whole person, and irregardless [sic], there is no excuse for the words that have been spoken directly to me or about me. Shame on you Megyn Kelly. Shame on you, Fox News (vought incarnate). Implying that my photo is reflective of women being in a worse place is as false as my conviction in saying that if you resigned, you would be leaving women in a better place."
Moriarty discussed how social media has impacted her mental health before, also noting the misogynistic ridicule made towards her The Boys character, Starlight. "Everyone's going through their own battle [sic]; let's not add to that," she wrote in an Instagram post last September.
