Madeline Brewer Shuts Down You Fans Criticizing Her Appearance
"If you don't like my character, I don't care — but you don't need to call me ugly."
Turns out, dealing with toxic You fans may actually be worse than dating Joe Goldberg. Madeline Brewer has encountered a number of social media trolls since debuting her character Bronte on the final season of You. On the show, Bronte is a complex new addition who can be frustrating in her back-and-forth feelings for Joe. However, her heroic ending should feel cathartic for fans who get the true message the series is trying to send. Unfortunately, that’s not everyone.
After You Season 5 premiered on April 24, fans began to notice Brewer was responding to hateful comments on her Instagram posts. To commenters who wrote that she “ruined” the show, Brewer simply responded, “No I didn’t❤️.” The hate also crossed the line into physical appearance. When one troll called Brewer “not pretty,” the actor stood up for herself, replying, “I am pretty!” And when another detractor said her character was the “worst love interest” on You, Brewer was quick to diagnose the jealousy in the remark: “Sorry I got to kiss him and you didn’t and that makes you sad 😢.”
Brewer had predicted she might get some backlash when the new season came out. “I'd like everyone to love the ending like I do, but a lot of people are probably going to hate it,” Brewer said in an April 26 L’OFFICIEL interview. “That’s their prerogative. I know that you can't please everybody.”
While she’s OK with people who are critical of the storyline, she’s going to fight back when the hate becomes unnecessarily personal. “It's so funny, because people are truly unable to separate the actor from the character,” Brewer said. “I know Kaitlyn Dever is getting a lot of this right now, too [for her role as Abby on The Last of Us], and it’s like, why are we so incapable of doing that? Also, if you don't like my character, I don't care — but you don't need to call me ugly.”
