Comments made by Iroh star Paul Sun-Hyung Lee about hate online have resurfaced as Avatar: The Last Airbender fans call out the bullying and harassment Mai star Thalia Tran has been facing amid the release of season two.
Ever since the live-action adaptation first landed on Netflix in 2024, Tran has faced negative comments about her appearance and body, and this has only continued into the second season.
Her Instagram account has been inundated with cruel comments telling her to “diet” or “leave the show”, and real fans are taking notice.
Thaila Tran (Mai’s actress from ATLA) is being harassed and bullied by the community because of her looks. pic.twitter.com/mhdORNG0ou
— •tr1stan⛷️ (@nuel_irl) June 29, 2026
One person shared screenshots of just a few of the messages she’s received recently, writing, “Thaila Tran (Mai’s actress from ATLA) is being harassed and bullied by the community because of her looks.”
Another said, “Harassing someone over their appearance is never okay. The hate comments in those screenshots are disgusting. People need to chill and stop using ‘fandom’ as an excuse to be cruel.”
Influencer Lily Hiʻilani also chimed in on the conversation, saying in a video that while it’s fine to have opinions about the show itself and the writing, “the one thing you guys are wrong about is criticising the actress who’s playing Mai because of her size.”
@hiililylani My bad, I totally forgot that the whole point of Mai’s character was to have a “lethal face card” or something. That is the only thing that matters to her, right? Not to mention, it’s a very common understanding that the fuller a person looks, the younger they appear. And the point is that Mai, Azula, Ty Lee, and all of these other characters are young teenagers, living through war, imperialism, g-nocide, etc. These are supposed to be CHILDREN, and you’re so mad that a teenage character doesn’t look “attractive enough” for you. Yeah, that’s not weird at all. #atla#avatarthelastairbender#netflix#atlaliveaction#liveaction
“Her Instagram comments are filled with people shaming her for her body,” she added, pointing out how weird it is to compare a real person to a cartoon character.
Hiʻilani also wrote, “These are supposed to be CHILDREN, and you’re so mad that a teenage character doesn’t look ‘attractive enough’ for you. Yeah, that’s not weird at all.”
Paul Sun-Hyung Lee comments hit different after Thalia Tran hate
Amid the ongoing debate, an interview with Paul Sun-Hyung Lee – who plays Iroh in Avatar: The Last Airbender – has resurfaced in which he rants about the hate online.
His comments were made shortly after season one of the live-action series landed, meaning he’s not addressing the specific body shaming and bullying.
But they resonate with this current conversation, particularly as criticism of fandom behaviour has also resurfaced around other recent releases, including the backlash directed at Milly Alcock in Supergirl.
Lee admitted to AwardsRadar at the time that he’d been “on tenterhooks” waiting to see how fans would react to the show, explaining that he was worried about the backlash because “the internet can be a horrible place sometimes.”
“People can say super horribly hurtful things. I think it’s just because they forget that they’re talking about real people,” he said.
“As much as you don’t like a show, when you make a pithy little remark that you think is very funny and everybody roasts, there’s somebody else on the other side of that. People lose sight of that.
“If they were to say that to their face, I bet you dollars to donuts they would not have the guts to do that because they would look into their eyes and realise this is an actual human being, and these words will hurt them.”
Lee went on to question how many of the show’s harshest critics had ever experienced that level of scrutiny themselves.
“Everybody who’s critical of the creative process, I wonder how many of them have actually created things themselves and had that kind of vitriol directed towards them,” he continued.
“No one’s trying to upset you because it wasn’t your version or what you wanted. I think we’ve gotten to the point online where it’s like, ‘Let’s just point out the stuff we hated’ instead of going, ‘They got all these things right.’
“I’m not saying the show is perfect, but I’m seeing a lot of the haterade out there and people just lapping it up. These negative clicks will be the death of us all.”
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Featured image credit: Netflix/X
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