Florence Pugh has hit out at “sad” online trolls who criticised her relationship with Zach Braff.
The Oscar-nominated star of Little Women, 24, said that “within about eight minutes” of her sharing a photo of her boyfriend to mark his 45th birthday she began to get “comments hurling abuse and being horrid”.
These accounted for about 70% of the comments on the photo and she stopped other users from being able to post replies to her picture, she said in a video posted on Instagram.
She said: “I will underline this fact, I am 24-years-old, I do not need you to tell me who I should and should not love and I would never in my life ever, ever tell anyone who they can and cannot love.
“It is not your place and really it has nothing to do with you.
“So if those rules are something that you do not like then please unfollow me because the abuse you throw at him is abuse you are throwing at me and I don’t want those followers and I don’t want to have to be protecting my comments every time I post a picture of him.”
She added: “It is the first time in my entire Instagram life that I have had to turn off the comments on my page.
“I have never been an Instagram page that encourages that. I have never been an Instagram page that likes that toxic vibe.
“I have only ever been an Instagram page that tries to bring some light and tries to be positive and tries to make people smile.
She added: “I am not about that, it makes me upset, it makes me sad that during this time when we really all need to be together, we need to be supporting one another, we need to be loving EACH other.
“The world is aching and the world is dying and a few of you decided to bully for no reason.”
She added that the criticism is “embarrassing” and “sad”.
British actress Pugh has reportedly been dating US actor Braff since last year.