She plays an iconic character on TV, but that hasn't protected Milana Vayntrub from a tumultuous family life and a torrent of nasty messages.
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00:00She plays an iconic character on TV, but that hasn't protected Milana Vayntrub from a tumultuous
00:05family life and a torrent of nasty messages.
00:09Milana Vayntrub was born on March 8, 1987, to a Jewish family in Uzbekistan, which was
00:15part of the Soviet Union at the time.
00:17Two years later, they were refugees in America, escaping religious persecution.
00:21As Vayntrub explained to NBC News in November 2016,
00:24There was a lot of discrimination against the Jews at that time.
00:27Both my parents were born there, but we were considered outsiders.
00:30We had some family in L.A. who offered to help us get there.
00:33So when they got the chance to leave, my parents took it.
00:36Vayntrub spent the rest of her childhood in West Hollywood,
00:38while her parents worked odd jobs, as she recalled to InStyle,
00:41My mom worked in a factory that manufactured airplane parts and cleaned medical buildings
00:46at night, all while completing a program offered by the Jewish Federation to become
00:49a registered nurse at Cedars-Sinai Hospital.
00:52And my dad, he worked as a donut delivery man.
00:54Vayntrub's parents eventually split up, and her dad returned to Uzbekistan to start his
00:58own company.
00:59So he was traveling my whole life.
01:02He's been gone.
01:03Despite her tumultuous childhood, Vayntrub looks back on her upbringing fondly,
01:07partly because of how it shaped her career.
01:09As she told Esquire in 2015,
01:11This is why I do comedy, because I've had such a weird childhood.
01:15Some child stars get into show business to help support their parents.
01:18Vayntrub was one of them, and she soon became her family's breadwinner.
01:22As she revealed on the Box Angeles podcast in 2015,
01:25It started because we were really poor, and someone was like,
01:28You should put her into commercials, and then she can pay for her own college.
01:31Vayntrub's mother entered her into a beauty pageant at Disneyland when she was five.
01:35After she won, she ended up signing with her first agent.
01:38She then really caught the acting bug, which led to gigs in Barbie commercials and a few
01:42episodes of ER.
01:43There's no doubt that she felt some pressure to help out her family,
01:46but fortunately she also truly loved what she was doing.
01:50During her teenage years, Vayntrub appeared on a number of TV shows,
01:54including the soap opera Days of Our Lives and the Disney Channel sitcom Lizzie McGuire.
01:58But eventually she took a step back from performing.
02:01As she told Esquire,
02:02I just kind of stopped for a while because I didn't think I wanted to do it.
02:05I stopped around middle school and high school because I remember thinking,
02:08I should probably focus on something more realistic.
02:10So instead, she set her sights on a career as an artist.
02:13As she explained on Box Angeles,
02:15I wanted to be a painter or a graphic designer. Like, art was way more my thing.
02:19She gave up on acting and wasn't even involved in any of her school's drama productions
02:23because she thought they weren't very good.
02:25Unfortunately, her grades weren't very good either.
02:27After her sophomore year, Vayntrub decided to drop out altogether.
02:31Fortunately, though, this gave her the opportunity to explore other options.
02:35She trained in improv at the Upright Citizens Brigade, got her GED,
02:39attended community college, and graduated from UC San Diego with a degree in communication.
02:45As Vayntrub's career hit an upward trajectory in the 2010s,
02:48she went from starring in short films to major TV shows like Silicon Valley and This Is Us.
02:53In 2017, it was announced that she would be joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe
02:57in a live-action series called New Warriors.
03:00She was going to play Doreen Green, aka Squirrel Girl,
03:03but alas, the show ultimately never came to fruition.
03:06New Warriors was originally set to air on Freeform,
03:09and then there were rumblings that it would end up instead on Disney+,
03:12although that didn't work out either.
03:13Showrunner Kevin Biegel alleged on social media that a homophobic executive was responsible for
03:18the cancellation because it was apparently too gay.
03:21But this was far from the most tragic moment in Vayntrub's life.
03:24She still got to play Squirrel Girl in a couple of animated miniseries and a podcast.
03:29At WonderCon in April 2019, she told The Marvel Report,
03:32"...when I am voicing her, I genuinely feel so connected to her in the cheesiest way possible.
03:37I feel like Squirrel Girl is not just my spirit animal, she is like my spirit."
03:41"...I want to be more like her."
03:43In 2020, Vayntrub returned to her most iconic role for a series of new AT&T commercials
03:48adjusted for the new reality of the COVID-19 pandemic.
03:51While many viewers enjoyed seeing their favorite spokesperson in her new work-from-home setting,
03:55others were focused more on her body.
03:57Crude and inappropriate comments filled AT&T's social media,
04:01and it wasn't long before the company had to step in, as it replied to one comment,
04:05"...we don't condone sexual harassment of employees in the workplace or on our social channels."
04:09Alas, this wasn't enough to stop the harassment completely.
04:12In August, Vayntrub addressed the issue herself on Instagram Live, as she pleaded,
04:17"...I do not want any of this. I'm hurting and it's bringing up,
04:20like, a lot of feelings of sexual assault."
04:22"...it hurts my feelings."
04:24Fortunately for Vayntrub, she had a fellow iconic pitch woman on her side,
04:27as Stephanie Courtney, who plays Flo from Progressive, reached out to support her.
04:31But unfortunately, some of the media coverage of her harassment was much less supportive,
04:36and her video was deemed to be a desperate plea,
04:38or, as Vayntrub described it to The New York Times in 2023,
04:42"...like I was begging a lover to not walk out on me into the pouring rain."
04:46Vayntrub was, at least, in a fortunate position to take action against the harassment,
04:50as she was now the director of her AT&T commercials.
04:53She continued to appear as Lilly in several spots,
04:56but often from behind a desk or using tighter shots that didn't go below her shoulders.
05:00She addressed the decision on social media in March 2021, as she wrote,
05:04"...I place myself like that, and it's because of the thousands of
05:06unwelcome comments I receive about my body.
05:09You've lost the privilege of looking at it until I feel safe again."
05:12Vayntrub told Business Insider in July 2021,
05:15"...just by showing up to do my job,
05:16I received unwanted sexual and violent comments about my body
05:19and what people want to do to it."
05:21She explained that going forward, she had to consider everything,
05:24from the amount of skin she showed to acting in any sort of sexual scene.
05:27"...I'm unfortunately always thinking about it."
05:30"...once you show people their words have the power to hurt you,
05:34they'll never stop doing it. Ah."
05:37In February 2022, just before the overturning of Roe v. Wade,
05:41Vayntrub wrote an essay for The Daily Beast about her own abortion experience.
05:45She became pregnant for the first time in 2012,
05:47while she and her boyfriend were struggling to make ends meet.
05:50There was never a question in her mind about what to do. As she recalled,
05:53"...I immediately knew the right thing to do was to have an abortion.
05:56There was no hand-wringing, no confusion, no sleepless nights.
05:59My moral compass pointed very clearly in the direction of not bringing a child
06:02into the world that I did not want and could not care for."
06:05Years later, Vayntrub became pregnant again,
06:08but this time she was in a much better position to care for a child.
06:11The topic of abortion remains controversial,
06:13so it was hardly surprising that Vayntrub received backlash for sharing her story,
06:17including one person calling her a baby killer on Instagram.
06:20Nevertheless, she hasn't backed away from the conversation.
06:23As she posted to Ex in April 2023,
06:25Abortion care is a holistic part of maternity care, as is autonomy, safety, joy, and freedom.
06:32There's only so much that you can do to deter vulgar online comments.
06:35That's abundantly clear to Milana Vayntrub,
06:38as she continues to receive shockingly vile messages via social media.
06:41In December 2023, she shared a few Polaroid pictures of herself on Instagram
06:46from a vintage-style photoshoot. While many of her followers offered kind and supportive comments,
06:50others took things in the completely wrong direction.
06:53One person asked if she'd gotten a breast reduction,
06:55while another simply posted a crude term to describe her chest.
06:58In August 2024, Vayntrub was promoting her short film,
07:02Pickled Herring, on Instagram with an image of her and her co-star, Rene Goubet.
07:06And once again, the inappropriate responses poured in,
07:09with users continuing to make misogynistic comments about her body.