Chloë Grace Moretz says she 'became a recluse' after 'horrific' memes comparing her body to a 'Family Guy' joke

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  • Chloë Grace Moretz said memes about her body caused her to become a "recluse."

  • She said specifically, a meme comparing her body to a "Family Guy" joke "really affected" her.

  • "I think that body dysmorphia – which we all deal with in this world – is extrapolated by the issues of social media," she said.

Chloë Grace Moretz said she "became a recluse" after "horrible" memes comparing her body to a "Family Guy" joke circulated in 2019.

"For a long time I was able to be the Chloë that people see and the Chloë that I am in private," Moretz told Hunger magazine of a time before memes about her began circulating on the internet and social media. "Then those two worlds collided and I felt really raw and vulnerable and open."

"There was one meme that really affected me, of me walking into a hotel with a pizza box in my hand," she added. "And this photo got manipulated into a character from 'Family Guy' with the long legs and the short torso, and it was one of the most widespread memes at the time."

She said that at the time, when she brought up her feelings to someone, she recalled that they told her to "shut the fuck up" because "it's funny."

"And I just remember sitting there and thinking, my body is being used as a joke and it's something that I can't change about who I am, and it is being posted all over Instagram," she told Hunger Magazine. "It was something so benign as walking into a hotel with leftovers. And to this day, when I see that meme, it's something very hard for me to overcome."

"After that, I was kind of sad," she said, noting that the meme took something she used to love — getting dressed up and going to a red carpet event — into something that made her "super self-conscious."

"And I think that body dysmorphia – which we all deal with in this world – is extrapolated by the issues of social media. It's a headfuck," Moretz said.

To deal with it, she told Hunger that she became a "recluse."

"It was great because I got away from the photographers and I was able to be myself, and to have so many experiences that people didn't photograph, but at the same time it made me severely anxious when I was photographed," she said. "My heart rate would rise and I would hyperventilate."

Chloë Grace Moretz attends the 2022 Met Gala.
Chloë Grace Moretz attends the 2022 Met Gala.Dimitrios Kambouris / Staff / Getty Images

Moretz has previously spoken out about her experiences as a child and young adult actor in Hollywood.

In a 2017 interview with Variety, the "Carrie" star revealed that she'd been body-shamed by one of her costars as a teen.

"This guy that was my love interest was like, 'I'd never date you in a real life,' and I was like, 'What?' And he was like, 'Yeah, you're too big for me' — as in my size," Moretz said at the time. "It was one of the only actors that ever made me cry on set."

Although Moretz didn't mention the actor's name in the interview, she said that he was in his 20s at the time, approximately "23, 24, or 25."

And in 2018, the "Kick Ass" actor said she considered getting plastic surgery when she was 16 after someone left a push-up bra with silicone inserts in her trailer.

"I was, like, 'Where did these come from?'" she told The Sunday Times Style magazine. "Those little things were insidious. Even though you can brush them off, you still internalize them. They make you question yourself and think, 'Well, maybe I am unhappy with the size of my breasts.'"

Read the original article on Insider