Ahead of Wednesday’s release of the eighth episode of the third and final season of “The Summer I Turned Pretty,” Amazon told fans that they need to calm down.
The streamer Prime Video released a statement asserting to the Jenny Han-created YA romance series’ audience that it was disappointed in recent bullying behavior on social media that targeted “The Summer I Turned Pretty” cast members.
“The show isn’t real but the people playing the characters are,” the official “The Summer I Turned Pretty TikTok account wrote in a caption accompanying a video graphic that read: “The Summer We Started Acting Normal Online.”
The warning came on the heels of insults hurled at several stars, and even public death threats made at Gavin Casalegno, who plays Jeremiah Fisher, one of two brothers (the other being Conrad Fisher, played by Christopher Briney) who has been vying for the affections of Belly Conklin (played by Lola Tung) over the show’s three-season run.
With the release of Episode 8, Season 3, titled “Last Kiss,” on Wednesday, the show has three more episodes to go before it concludes. Sources close to production tell Variety the Tuesday warning was issued as the show approaches its finale and fans become more vocal. As the weekly release has progressed, producers have see more opportunity for toxic behavior online, where most users feel they can hurl anonymous, overly harsh criticisms.
It should also be noted that, in addition to the bullying of Casalegno for his role as Belly’s love interest Jeremiah, several fans have seemingly targeted him for his alleged conservative political beliefs, including social media posts the actor has liked.
This is not the first time Amazon’s warned “The Summer I Turned Pretty” fans against harassing the show’s cast — and other fans — online, as an initial statement was released by the show before the third and final season premiered its first two episodes July 16.
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Following the Season 3 premiere, Amazon TV chief Vernon Sanders explained to Variety that the message felt necessary after the streamer “had similar situations in the past with adaptations.” (The most notable instance of this was the racially charged comments made about “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” stars when that show was first released in 2022.)
“We’ve had similar situations in the past with adaptations, where there is a fanbase out there that I think can get rowdy, and it sometimes can blur the line between characters and actors or overstep,” Sanders said. “And so we really appreciate them and appreciate their passion, but we’re trying to be more proactive about setting expectations of what we want to encourage and maybe what we find not appropriate. And I think our creators and our cast really appreciate us taking the proactive stance there.”
In summer 2025, toxic fandoms have been the rule, not the exception. The cast members of Peacock’s reality hit “Love Island USA” have faced a tsunami of online hatred. Contestant Cierra Ortega, who was ousted from the show after past racist social media posts were exposed, said that the show’s viewers had called ICE on her family. Another contestant, Olandria Carthen, told Variety about her experience seeing a meme of herself as George Floyd. “It’s disgusting, to say the least,” Carthen said. “I was even getting death threats. My family was getting death threats. It shouldn’t be like that at all.”
Kate Aurthur contributed to this story.
From Variety US