The Real Reason Daisy Ridley Quit Instagram

Daisy Ridley has made it no secret that uber-fame (and the public scrutiny that comes with it) isn't something she's always prepared to deal with. The star of J.J. Abrams' "Star Wars" trilogy told The Zoe Report, "It was just a lot. I had always felt quite mature and suddenly I felt like a child... I like to be in control of what is going on." Aside from the downright terrifying side to fame — "like two men knocked on my door" — the "Chaos Walking" star was equally encumbered by the pressures of continuing one of the most popular film franchises in history. "I am aware, having played someone so heroic... that people might think of me in a certain way, and then I feel like a massive letdown," she told The Zoe Report.

Per Elle, the pressures of being "Rey" took both a mental and physical toll on Ridley. Diagnosed with endometriosis ("an often painful disorder in which tissue similar to the tissue that normally lines the inside of your uterus... grows outside your uterus," per Mayo Clinic) at age 15, Ridley told Elle that after the release of "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," "I had holes in my gut wall and stuff... I'd felt poorly," adding, "I was in my flat going nuts, and then my skin got really bad with the stress of it all." 

Given her aversion to fame, we can only wonder what Daisy Ridley's real reason for quitting Instagram is... 

After receiving backlash for a post on her Instagram about gun violence in 2016, Daisy Ridley deleted the social media platform and all others (per People). Moreover, according to her appearance on BuzzFeed News' morning show "AM to DM" in 2019, she is never going back to the social sphere. "I honestly think now with social media and stuff, it's great to have freedom of expression, but I do feel like people think opinions have so much weight," Ridley observed, continuing, "I don't really think bad vibes should have the sun shone on them. Like, I don't want to read your thing."

Much like her relationship with social media, Ridley just doesn't think she's cut out for public attention itself. As the accomplished actor told Glamour in 2017, "I'm just not equipped for it. I'm super sensitive — not too sensitive — but I really feel things." Ridley also shared with The Irish Times her thoughts on the Hollywood rumor mill. "Everybody needs to be more accountable for what they post and what they share," Ridley stated. "Recently, I met someone that knew of someone I vaguely knew that knew something about me they shouldn't have known. I was, like, 'Yeah, please don't talk about stuff like that.'" 

"People think they know things about you, and that they know you — it's a constant imbalance," Ridley languished to the British outlet, adding that she was "of course, grateful and lucky" for the opportunities fame afforded her.

Daisy Ridley is so strict about maintaining control over her private life (more than understandably so) that she requests friends never have phones out when they dine out. Via The Irish Times, Ridley explained that it wasn't out of vanity. "I'm, like, 'You can't say where we are, not just because it's me — because it's not safe.' My friend has 50,000 followers, and you're telling 50,000 people where you are right at that moment? That's scary," Ridley balked. (Well, when she puts it like that...) 

As Elle noted in a 2017 profile, Ridley's friends call her "Paranoid Linda" ("Linda" became "a jokey alias" for Ridley on vacation) for her attentive tendencies in public. Per Elle, Ridley shared that she would analyze waiters for perhaps being too nice to her and often wonder if she would ride the tube again. Friends began teasing her when she once was certain a man followed them around due to the fact that he was a private eye hired by a film studio. 

Such is Ridley's price on her privacy that when Marie Claire asked the actor in 2019 — after being spotted wearing a diamond ring on her ring finger — if she was engaged to boyfriend Tom Bateman, she simply replied, "The thing is, I've never talked about my personal life. So I won't talk about it now." As for the ring, Ridley cheekily said, "It's a really nice ring that I wear."