Millie Bobby Brown: Stranger Things fans defend star from ‘disgusting’ and ‘unfunny’ homophobic memes

‘Honestly, it makes me feel bad for her,’ one fan wrote

Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown is being defended by fans after the memes that forced her to quit Twitter resurfaced online.

In 2018, the actor, who plays Eleven in the hit Netflix series, deleted her Twitter account after thousands of posts – claimed by Vulture to be satirical jokes – misattributed homophobic and racist comments to her.

The report read: “For those of you unfamiliar: the joke here seems to be that it’s so wildly out of character and unbelievable for Millie Bobby Brown to act violently or intolerant, presenting her as such makes people laugh.”

Brown, who has long been a vocal advocate of LGBTQ+ rights, was 14 at the time. Shortly after the meme began trending on Twitter, she deleted her account and has not returned to the social media platform since.

Following the release of Stranger Things’s fourth season, the meme resurfaced, leaving many to jump to the defence of Brown, who is now 18.

“Millie Bobby Brown homophobe jokes have to be the most unfunny thing ever,” one fan qwrote, with another saying they ‘were never funny”.

Another expressed shock that the memes were still being used, writing: “People are STILL making homophobe Millie Bobby Brown jokes? IN 2022???”

Millie Bobby Brown quit Twitter in 2018 because of ‘satirical’ memes that misattributed homophobic quotes to her (Getty Images for Netflix)

One Twitter user branded them “f***ing weird and distrubing”, with another stating: “Honestly, the Millie Bobby Brown homophobe joke makes me feel bad for her.”

“The way Twitter talks about Millie Bobby Brown is so nasty I literally just know we're going to get public apologies 10 years from now when she's farther removed from this situation and starts talking about how badly everyone treated her,” another widely shared tweet read.

The Independent has contacted Brown’s representative for comment.

In a recent interview, Brown addressed fan speculation that Stranger Things character Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) is gay, saying: “Can I just say, it’s 2022 and we don’t have to label things.”

The fourth season is available to stream on Netflix now. Read The Independent’s review here.