Julia Roberts ‘Hurt’ After Trolls Slam Sweet Photo With Niece

Oscar-winner Julia Roberts was hurt by some recent Instagram comments over a photo her niece shared that depicted the two of them playing cards on the social media site.

Roberts joined Instagram just this year and found herself on the end of some unexpected negativity.

TooFab reported that the 50-year-old actress has blocked anyone she doesn’t follow from commenting on her posts (she only follows 25 people). But that didn’t stop her from seeing comments online about how she looked in a sweet photo niece Emma Roberts shared of the two playing cards on Instagram.

“Something did happen recently on my niece Emma’s Instagram that I think taught me a lot about what it’s like being a young person in today’s society,” Roberts said in an interview conducted by television icon Oprah Winfrey in the new issue of Harper’s Bazaar.

“One weekend morning Emma slept over, and we got up and were having tea and playing cards and having this beautiful morning, and then a couple of days later she posted a picture of us.”

“And the number of people who felt absolutely required to talk about how terrible I looked in the picture — that I’m not aging well, that I look like a man, why would she even post a picture like this when I look that terrible — I was amazed at how that made me feel,” she said of the negativity she experienced.

“I’m a 50-year-old woman and I know who I am, and still my feelings got hurt,” Roberts added. “I was sad that people couldn’t see the point of it, the sweetness of it, the absolute shining joy of that photo. I thought, ‘What if I was 15?'”

Roberts then admitted to Winfrey that she was grateful for the experience. She remarked it gave her a glimpse into the darker side of social media and how she needed to go through the experience in order to fully understand it.

The actress said she only joined Instagram after her children Henry, Hazel, and Phinnaeus asked her to do so.

She remarked that it is “tricky” trying to figure out what to post because she is at heart a friendly person but wants to protect her privacy.

Since joining Instagram, the actress has amassed over 2 million followers and shared over 50 posts.

Roberts new film Ben Is Back takes a darker look at the effects of drug addiction on a family. It also stars Lucas Hedges.

Variety chief film critic Peter Debruge said of the film, “The entire film is that rarest of gifts for its cast, providing virtually every character with a chance to play not only the present moment but the complicated history they’ve established with Ben in the past, as well as whatever chance they see in the troubled young man’s future.”

Ben Is Back hits theaters December 7.