Why The House Of The Dragon Fandom Made Olivia Cooke Leave Social Media

"House of the Dragon" star Olivia Cooke may be back on Instagram, but she temporarily stepped away from social media earlier this year, partly because of the show's fandom.

In a November 2026 interview with GQ, Cooke discussed the hostility surrounding Season 3: "There's a lot of ugliness to that fandom as well. It's steeped in misogyny. There's a lot of racism. I try to let it take up minimal mental real estate." She also dismissed fan speculation that the show's directors were exploiting her, describing those interpretations as "something that bears no resemblance to what was shown on the screen at the time." 

Cooke previously discussed unpleasant fan encounters in a 2025 interview with The Hollywood Reporter: "They'll take a picture, and then they'll be like: 'We HATE your character!' Sometimes people do say that with a lot of malice." She also criticized fans who mistreated her fellow cast members, noting that Matt Smith, who plays Daemon Targaryen, had faced similar behavior.

Cooke's character, Queen Alicent Hightower, is one of the series' most controversial figures, particularly following the Season 3 premiere in which her son, Aemond (Ewan Mitchell), kisses her. The kiss even surprised Cooke when she first read the script, but some fans have directed their frustrations with Alicent toward the actress herself. The fandom is also divided between Team Green and Team Black, with Alicent's position as a leader among the Greens placing her at the center of that rivalry. 

Cooke's negative experiences with fans weren't the only reason she stepped away from social media. As she explained to GQ, she was also experiencing fatigue with the platforms themselves. "I was just like, I'm on this too much. It's not nourishing." Noting the disparity between the artistic side of being an actor and the commercialized aspect, she shared, "I think the celebri-fied nature of being an actor has now snowballed into this monster ... we make these TV shows and films, yes, for escapism, but also because it's artful and it's creative and it's not for followers or for a brand deal."

Other actors in the "Game of Thrones" franchise have also faced hostility from fans who struggle to separate performers from their characters. Carice van Houten, who played Melisandre of Asshai, revealed in a 2017 interview with ELLE that she received death threats during her time on "Game of Thrones." Isaac Hempstead Wright, who played Bran Stark, similarly described harassment in an Esquire interview: "I remember getting a torrent of abuse after Hodor died, like it was my fault. Suddenly people decided to attack my appearance." 

Cooke's criticism of the "House of the Dragon" fandom is far from an isolated complaint. The death threats directed at van Houten and the body-shaming Wright endured show that hostility toward actors isn't limited to "House of the Dragon," but has affected performers elsewhere in the franchise.