Obi-Wan Kenobi star Ewan McGregor slams racist abuse of Star Wars co-star Moses Ingram
- Ewan McGregor addresses racist comments to ‘Obi-Wan’ star Moses Ingram
- Ingram plays Sith Inquisitor Reva Sevander on the new Disney+ series
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Ewan McGregor has hit back at people targeting fellow Star Wars actor Moses Ingram with racist abuse, saying they are not true fans.
Ingram – who stars alongside McGregor in limited series Obi-Wan Kenobi – highlighted racist messages she had received online in a story on her Instagram account, prompting him to respond with a video on the site.
“We stand with Moses. We love Moses. And if you’re sending her bullying messages, you’re no Star Wars fan in my mind,” said McGregor, who plays the title character in the series.
“She brings so much to the series, she brings so much to the franchise. And it just sickened me to my stomach that this had been happening,” he added.
The franchise’s Twitter account also took aim at those attacking Ingram, a black actress who plays a Jedi-hunting Inquisitor in the Disney+ series.
“We are proud to welcome Moses Ingram to the Star Wars family and excited for Reva’s story to unfold,” it said in a tweet that included an image of Ingram with a red lightsaber in hand.
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“If anyone intends to make her feel in any way unwelcome, we have only one thing to say: we resist.”
On Monday, Ingram shared screenshots of the messages people sent her online on Instagram, calling her a “diversity hire” among other insults and racial slurs.
“Long story short, there are hundreds of those, hundreds,” Ingram said in a follow-up video posted to her Instagram story. “There’s nothing anybody can do to stop this hate.”
“The thing that bothers me is…. sort of this feeling that I’ve had inside of myself, which no one has told me, but this feeling of, ‘I just have to shut up and take it’,” Ingram continued. “And I’m not built like that, so I really just wanted to come on and say thank you to the people that show up for me in the comments and the places I’m not gonna put myself. To the rest of y’all, y’all weird.”
It is not the first time that racism has been directed against a Star Wars actor of colour.
Star Wars actress Kelly Marie Tran strikes back at online racists
Asian-American actress Kelly Marie Tran, who made her Star Wars debut in 2017’s The Last Jedi, was hounded off social media by racist and sexist abuse.
British actor John Boyega has meanwhile criticised the treatment of non-white characters in the most recent three Star Wars films, saying they were marketed as important elements in the franchise but were ultimately “pushed to the side”.
Additional reporting by Tribune News Service
