Katie Leung Has Opened Up About The Racist Attacks She Faced While Filming ‘Harry Potter’
Harry Potter actor Katie Leung has spoken out about the racial abuse she received while starring in the franchise.
The 33-year-old, who played Cho Chang in the films, reflected on the online bullying that she faced on an episode of the Chinese Chippy Girl podcast.
Katie Leung From Harry Potter Opens Up
Leung was still going to school at the time the movies were being filmed, and she spoke about how she would be searching herself on the internet and see racist commentary. “I was like, googling myself at one point and I was on this website, which was kind of dedicated to the Harry Potter fandom, and I remember reading all the comments. It was a lot of racist shit,” she said.
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Katie Leung then spoke about encountering a “hate site” dedicated to her saying: “Somebody had actually created a website, a hate site — it was like, if you disagree with this casting, then click on this button and then it would just be like a count of how many people disagreed with the casting and you would just see a number… I know, it’s awful. It’s so awful.”
It was at this point that Leung approached a publicist to gain support on how to deal with the abuse, but in return she received rather shocking advice. “I remember them saying to me, ‘Oh look, Katie, we haven’t seen these websites that people are talking about. And if you get asked, then just say it’s not true. Say it’s not happening.’”
Yikes.
Katie Leung continued, “And I just nodded my head. I was like, ‘Okay, okay,’ even though I had seen it myself with my own eyes,” Leung said. “I was like, ‘Okay, yeah, I’ll just say everything’s great.'”
Leung also spoke about how she wished she hadn’t followed her publicist’s advice and had spoken out at the time, “Of course, I was grateful. I was really very fucking grateful that I was in the position I was in… But then, yeah … it wasn’t great.”
The last time Leung spoke about the racist abuse she received from Harry Potter fans was in 2016, saying in an interview: “I can’t remember much about that part of it because I was so in denial of what was happening”.
“I look back and I’m pretty impressed with how I did handle it.”