The man who played Jar Jar Binks suffered the vitriol of Star Wars fans.
The man who played Jar Jar Binks suffered the vitriol of Star Wars fans.
It should have been the role of a lifetime for then-little-known Ahmed Best. But the percussive dancer plucked from obscurity to play Jar Jar Binks in massive movie franchise Star Wars only found hatred and personal turmoil.
Now, years later, Best has revealed the suffering he endured due to fans’hatred of him and his character, who had substantial screen time in 1999’s Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace.
Ahmed Best thought he'd been pranked when he was first approached to play the role of Jar Jar Binks. Photo / Getty Images
Even before the film hit theatres, the New York Post reports the character of Jar Jar was on the receiving end of jokes, while Best was targeted in an online campaign of abuse, including death threats.
In an interview with The Guardian, Best revealed the vitriol had become so bad he’d considered ending his own life. He shared that he recalls thinking: “I’ll show all of you. I’ll show you what you’re doing to me. And when I’m gone, then you’ll feel exactly what I went through.”
And in a new podcast, The Redemption of Jar Jar Binks, Best has discussed his initial excitement over being scouted for the role and the devastation it led to.
“I was an enormous Star Wars fan as a kid,” Best said in the podcast. “I didn’t know what was happening. I thought it was a prank.”
But what may have felt too good to be true quickly turned into a nightmare for the fresh-faced newcomer.
While websites cropped up dedicated to destroying the character of Jar Jar Binks, Best was invited to appear on late-night talk shows only to find himself berated on live television. Some of the hatred toward the character of Jar Jar is said to be due to claims he portrayed a racist stereotype of a Jamaican person.
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