Olivia Cooke has said the summer airing of House of the Dragon Season 3 was partly what prompted her to step away from social media.
Cooke’s comments about the fandom
In a new British GQ interview and photoshoot, Cooke, who plays Alicent Hightower, spoke candidly about the online reaction to the show.
“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 noted that some fans turned frustration over story choices onto her personally, while others treated her as an unwilling victim of the creative decisions.
Cooke pushed back on those readings, saying some interpretations “catch fire, and they become something that bears no resemblance to what was shown on the screen at the time.”
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The interview comes with a fresh GQ photoshoot by Elisa Baudoin. In it, Cooke appears in stylish looks while reflecting on a busy period that included Season 3 of House of the Dragon and her return to Slow Horses.
Credits: GQ
Why she logged off
Cooke explained that she deactivated her social media accounts during a break after back-to-back work.
“I was just like, I’m on this too much. It’s not nourishing.”
She described the increasingly “celebri-fied” side of acting as something she wanted distance from, saying that shows and films should be about creativity and art rather than followers or brand deals.
She has since returned to Instagram in a more limited way, but remains wary.
Even replying to DMs from other famous people feels “anxiety”-inducing, she noted.
This is not the first time Cooke has spoken about stepping back online.
Earlier in 2026, she had said she deleted Instagram partly because of toxic content and the strain of public encounters where fans would ask for photos and then insult her character.
For fans, the comments highlight the ongoing tension between the passionate House of the Dragon audience and the actors who face the harsher side of that passion; especially after a season that included divisive Alicent storylines.
