About

Bella Ramsey Shooting a Gun, also known as Bella Ramsey Pointing a Gun, refers to a series of posts about a photo of actress Bella Ramsey pointing a gun, sourced from a trailer for season 2 of HBO's The Last of Us (based on the video game series) in which Ramsey plays the protagonist Ellie. In early 2025, many internet users attacked Ramsey's appearance in viral posts and memes, calling them "ugly" and questioning if they had fetal alcohol syndrome, among other conditions. The still image of the actress pointing the pistol fueled an argument that Ramsey was miscast for the role based on their looks, either because their appearance didn't make them threatening or because they didn't look like Ellie from the video games. One viral tweet read, "Is HBO deadass man… WTF is this?" Others levied backlash against Ramsey's critics for being mean-spirited about the young actress' appearance. The discourse spread on Twitter / X in March and April 2025. Another image of Bella Ramsey shooting the gun went viral on X in May 2025, in which Ramsey has screaming expression on their face.

Origin

On April 9th, 2025, X^[1] user @Lordvonzs tweeted a still from the then-recent trailer for The Last of Us season 2. The photo showed Bella Ramsey as Ellie pointing a gun at the camera. @Lordvonzs wrote, "Is HBO deadass man… WTF is this," gaining over 31.4 million views and 113,000 likes in two days (shown below).

Spread

The abovementioned tweet inspired multiple replies and quote tweets, like on April 9th, 2025, when X^[2] user @RudeBoyTetz tweeted, "Imagine getting boomed by this 😭😭😭," gaining over 103,000 likes in two days (shown below).

On April 10th, X^[3] user @SifuYeti replied to the tweet, attaching a J.D. Vance Photoshop edit of Bella Ramsey, gaining over 18,000 likes in a day (shown below).

Also on April 10th, 2025, X^[4] user @MrDumbBitch pushed back against many of the other critical quote tweets, writing, "People getting mad at HBO because they don't wanna fuck the actress that is playing a traumatized child," receiving over 145,000 likes in a day (shown below).

On May 5th, X^[5] user @MZjosef posted a new still from season 2, showing Bella Ramsey as Ellie firing a gun with a screaming expression on their face. In a day, the tweet received over 26,000 likes (shown below).

Others used the image in memes soon after, like X^[6] user @hayasaka_aryan on May 5th, 2025, who captioned it, "Female cops after giving you a ticket," gaining over 86,000 likes in a day (shown below).

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