Amandla Stenberg not shocked The Acolyte was canceled after "rampage of vitriol"

At least some people were surprised when Disney announced, a few weeks back, that it wasn't moving forward with a second season of its most recent Star Wars series, The Acolyte. The series, created and showrun by Leslye Headland, garnered massive amounts of attention—some of it even good!—during its streaming run, and ended on a cliffhanger promising more noir-ish Jedi action to come. The sudden decision to pull the plug came suddenly enough that even star Lee Jung-jae said he was shocked by the company's decision. But one person decidedly was not: Lee's co-star, Amandla Stenberg.

"I’m going to be transparent and say it’s not a huge shock for me," Stenberg, who played dual roles in the series, said in an Instagram Stories video posted online Wednesday evening. (Via Variety.) Stenberg called out "a rampage of vitriol that we have faced since the show was even announced, when it was still just a concept and no one had even seen it," as one of the key reasons the show wasn't long for this world. "That’s when we started experiencing a rampage of, I would say, hyper-conservative bigotry and vitriol, prejudice, hatred and hateful language towards us.”

Stenberg has talked before about how "fans" treated her for being a woman of color starring in a Star Wars TV show, ugliness that has only intensified since the show was canceled. In her video, Stenberg says that, "I feel like I’ve kind of moved through those feelings in various ways, including being vocal about it myself. … It just became inarguable for me, at a certain point, that in order to continue to be myself, I would have to honor my value system by being vocal even in the context of working for Disney.” Adding that it's been "an honor" to be part of the franchise, Stenberg expressed her sadness at the show being killed off, and thanked those who offered her support during its run.

Disney hasn't said why it decided to axe The Acolyte, although Variety notes that viewership numbers for the series fell off as it neared the end of its June and July of 2024 run. The series was a modest success with critics, although it was also aggressively review-bombed on sites like Rotten Tomatoes.