‘I became a recluse’: Chloe Grace Moretz reveals damaging impact of viral Family Guy meme

Chloe Grace Moretz has spoken about the effect a viral meme mocking her appearance caused to her mental health.

In 2016, the Greta star was pictured carrying two pizza boxes into a New York hotel clad in black T-shirt and shorts.

However, internet users later manipulated the image and removed the bottom half of her outfit, making it appear as though she had no torso.

Trolls then compared the altered image to fictional character Legs Go All the Way Up Griffin, that appeared on an episode of Family Guy in Season 10, relentlessly posting side-by-side pictures of her and the cartoon character together.

Reflecting on the viral meme, the 25-year-old said she was “really affected” by the “onslaught of horrific memes” resulting from the manipulated picture.

She told Hunger magazine: “Everyone was making fun of my body and I brought it up with someone and they were like, ‘Oh, shut the f**k up, it’s funny.’

“And I just remember sitting there and thinking, my body is being used as a joke and it’s something that I can’t change about who I am, and it is being posted all over Instagram. It was something so benign as walking into a hotel with leftovers.

“And to this day, when I see that meme, it’s something very hard for me to overcome.”

The Carrie actress said the memes left her “super self-conscious” and “severely anxious” any time she got photographed.

She added: “I basically became a recluse. It was great because I got away from the photographers and I was able to be myself, and to have so many experiences that people didn’t photograph, but at the same time it made me severely anxious when I was photographed. My heart rate would rise and I would hyperventilate.”

Moretz’s candid discussion comes as she is set to appear in Prime Video’s upcoming series The Peripheral, based on William Gibson’s sci-fi novel of the same name, opposite Jack Raynor and Gary Carr.

The official synopsis reads: “The Peripheral centres on Flynne Fisher (Chloe), a woman trying to hold together the pieces of her broken family in a forgotten corner of tomorrow’s America.

“Flynne is smart, ambitious, and doomed. She has no future; until the future comes calling for her. The Peripheral is master-storyteller William Gibson’s dazzling, hallucinatory glimpse into the fate of mankind — and what lies beyond.”