The Sad Truth About The Actress Who Plays Lily In AT&T Commercials
Audiences wanted to know about the AT&T commercial girl who starred in 40 ads for the company from 2013 until 2017. The character known in the commercials as Lily is played by actor Milana Vayntrub. As she became the face of AT&T, buzz started to build around the actor. There was even a joke on "Family Guy" about her. "How would you find out the name of the actual actress who plays the AT&T chick?" Peter asks Lois in one episode. Unfortunately, the fan attention turned volatile when Vayntrub reprised her role as Lily in 2020.
Besides her commercial work, Vayntrub is an accomplished TV actor with a surprising net worth, but all that success came with a price. When she returned to AT&T commercials, personal photos from her social media went viral, and a sect of fans were bombarding the "This is Us" actor with lewd remarks. Vayntrub addressed her mistreatment during an Instagram Live in August 2020. "But all of these comments — it hurts my feelings. I'm hurting and it's bringing up, like, a lot of feelings of sexual assault," she said. "I am not consenting to any of this," Vayntrub added.
Posts on AT&T's socials that featured Vayntrub's Lily were inundated with crass replies. "We have disabled or deleted these comments on our social content that includes Lily," the company said in a statement at the time supporting the actor, per Fox News. Sadly, Vayntrub was forced to take further measures when the harassment continued.
Milana Vayntrub had to carefully plan what she allowed viewers to see
In March 2021, AT&T aired commercials starring Milana Vayntrub that intentionally kept her body hidden. The ads, which aired during NCAA's March Madness, sparked a discussion about Vayntrub's body being obscured. This caused the "Werewolves Within" actor to address the issue on X, formerly Twitter. "Well, I direct the ads. I place myself like that. And it's because of the thousands of unwelcome comments I receive about my body," Vayntrub tweeted in March 2021. "You've lost the privilege of looking at it until I feel safe again," she added.
Later that year, Vayntrub further opened up about why she decided to keep her body off-camera. "Just by showing up to do my job, I received unwanted sexual and violent comments about my body and what people want to do to it," she told Business Insider in July 2021. The "Silicon Valley" actor discussed how the onus was put on her to "avoid harassment." That led to Vayntrub having to carefully select scenes not only in ad spots for AT&T but also in any other project she worked on. "I'm unfortunately always thinking about it," she added.
A fellow commercial star, Flo from Progressive — whose real name is Stephanie Courtney — reached out to Vayntrub to offer support. Speaking to The New York Times in December 2023, Vayntrub said Courtney's support made her feel "like there were people on my team." While difficult, the online harassment was not the greatest hardship Vayntrub had endured.
How Milana Vayntrub helped Syrian refugees
Milana Vayntrub's family immigrated to the United States as refugees when she was 2 years old. Her family, who are Jewish, fled the former Soviet Union to avoid persecution. "There was a lot of discrimination against the Jews at that time. Both my parents were born there but we were considered outsiders," the "Die Hart" actor told NBC News in November 2016. The Vayntrubs left their home in Uzbekistan for a transit camp in Italy before joining family in Los Angeles.
When Vayntrub saw the plight of Syrian refugees in 2016, she felt compelled to help. "I do know what it's like to be an outsider," she told NBC News. The AT&T commercial actor created the website to raise money for the refugees. "It's raised thousands of dollars in donations for our organization," Lexi Shereshewsky, executive director of The Syria Fund told NBC News at the time.
The inspiration to help the Syrian refugees came to Vayntrub when she was on a vacation in Greece in the summer of 2016. She saw a video of the afflicted that struck a nerve, and instead of flying back to Los Angeles, took a flight to Lesbos in Greece where many Syrians had sought refuge. "I had a big perspective shift on what my parents had to go through to give me the luxurious and happy life that I have," Vayntrub told Guideposts about the experience.