Chloë Grace Moretz has opened up in a new interview about how a viral Family Guy meme turned her into a "recluse".
Speaking to Hunger magazine, the 25-year-old detailed how she has dealt with paparazzi and life in the public eye, after working in the film industry for almost two decades.
Moretz shot to fame in 2012 after appearing in superhero comedy Kick-Ass, alongside Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Nicolas Cage, and Christopher Mintz-Plasse.
"It is kind of a distant memory, in the sense that I was a kid and 90 per cent of the time no one would really bother me. But after Kick-Ass, the first time I experienced paparazzi, it was 10 to 15 adult guys surrounding a 12-year-old girl," she said during the interview.
"They pushed my mom and she ended up falling into traffic – she didn't get hurt, but the situation was really chaotic. It's an assault on all the senses, with screaming and flashes. I got into the car afterwards and I just burst into tears. I think that's my marker of before and after," she added.
The Carrie actress then touched upon a cruel Family Guy meme about her that left her wanting to shy away from the public eye.
"I've actually never really talked about this, but there was one meme that really affected me, of me walking into a hotel with a pizza box in my hand. And this photo got manipulated into a character from Family Guy with the long legs and the short torso, and it was one of the most widespread memes at the time," Moretz told the magazine.
The meme stemmed from a harmless paparazzi image of the actress - who was dressed in black shorts and heels - carrying two pizza boxes. The image was edited so that her torso appeared unnaturally short, and her legs incredibly long.
She continued: "Everyone was making fun of my body and I brought it up with someone and they were like, 'Oh, shut the f*** 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 Atlanta native added.
The young award-winning actress, who has been previously linked to Brooklyn Beckham, maintained that his meme affected her greatly - removing "a layer of something" that she used to enjoy, which was dressing up and walking on the red carpet.
She added that she used to "hyperventilate" when posing for photographs and that she basically "became a recluse."
However, the talented star has managed to come out on the other side - channeling her frustration into her work. "I think that working again came at the perfect time in a lot of ways," she said during the interview.
Moretz's latest project - a sci-fi thriller called The Peripheral - is soon available to watch on Amazon Prime.