The Real Reason Millie Bobby Brown Deleted Twitter

Where were you when you were 12 years old? Maybe you were on the swings at the playground, or maybe you were at home playing video games. Maybe you were busy searching for Super Saiyan 5 Goku on Internet Explorer, or maybe you were just sitting on the couch watching "Samurai Jack." Whatever you may have done at that age, however, is surely in stark contrast to what Millie Bobby Brown did then.

In 2016, the then-12-year-old Brown would get the chance of a lifetime to showcase her acting prowess on a major platform. Starring as Eleven in Netflix's "Stranger Things," the preteen portrayed a young girl who underwent an abundance of experimental procedures, developing psychokinetic and telepathic powers in the process. Brown's first season role was exceptional in the fact that Eleven's vocabulary was limited, and relied primarily on physical movement and action. It was through her stellar performance on the series that Brown would soon skyrocket the ranks of Hollywood.

Coming with the territory, however, is the lingering coldness of social media. For any celebrity, social media can be an incredibly cruel place when anyone online can trash talk behind a veil of anonymity. Unfortunately, Brown felt the negative effects of social media early in her career and soon called it quits for her Twitter account in 2018. 

Social media is quite a double-edged sword. Connect with family and friends, and also turn a celebrity into a pariah — all in less than 60 seconds! Who would've thought that one of the world's most innovative inventions would eventually become weaponized? Well, a prime example of that weaponization is the case of Millie Bobby Brown and Twitter, when #TakeDownMillieBobbyBrown became a trending topic in 2018.

The meme, Vox notes, initially started as a satirical joke that eventually went awry. "I saw Millie Bobby Brown in the airport and asked for a pic and she said 'only if you take off the hijab' and I said 'its my faith' and she aggressively pulled it off my head and stamped on it," the original tweet read (via Vox). Who would actually believe that the teenage girl from "Stranger Things" would do such a thing? And when pressed about the legitimacy of her story and her religious beliefs, the original user shared a clearly edited image of her face over a hijab.

It only spiraled out of control from there. Soon, other members of Twitter joined in on the "fun," as users began telling outlandishly false stories of meeting Brown in public. The stories, which ranged from meeting Brown at the mall to a McDonald's, all ended with the punchline of the actor hurling homophobic slurs at the users. The whole scenario ultimately led the "Stranger Things" star to delete her Twitter.

After the homophobic meme debacle, "Stranger Things" actor Millie Bobby Brown decided that she had had enough of Twitter. In June 2018 (during Pride Month of all times), Brown was essentially bullied off of the social media platform after being on the butt-end of the bizarre series of jokes, which saw her falsely call people homophobic epithets upon meeting them.

What added insult to injury was the fact that Brown had previously expressed support for the LGBTQ+ community. In 2017, the actor was seen rocking two socially conscious pins — a blue ribbon for the American Civil Liberties Union and a blue ampersand for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (per Vanity Fair) — at the MTV Movie and TV Awards. It was a quiet move on the actor's end, but also one that spoke volumes to where she actually stands.

Despite deleting her primary Twitter, Brown still maintains a second Twitter profile under the name @Milliestopshate, where her bio reads: "I want this account to share love and positivity. let's stop bullying ✌️." She broke her Twitter silence in 2019 with a tweet that read, "hi. I missed u," before retreating into the Twitter shadows once more. Nevertheless, Brown remains active on Instagram, where she boasts more than 46 million followers.