About

Bella Ramsey's Face refers to a series of memes, viral debates and discourse about The Last of Us actor Bella Ramsey's appearance. Ramsey plays the character Ellie Williams in The Last of Us TV series, based on the video game franchise of the same name. Following her casting in early 2021, some internet users centered on Ramsey's face to cast doubt on her portrayal of Ellie. Her headshot became the subject of image macros, exploitable memes, Photoshop edits and jokes in 2025. An image of Bella Ramsey Shooting a Gun notably sparked memes akin to the trend. Others online pushed back on the insults, defending Ramsey and her role in the HBO (MAX) series.

Origin

Prominent discussions about Bella Ramsey's appearance started when she was cast as Ellie Williams for MAX's TV adaptation of the video game series The Last of Us on February 10th, 2021. Ramsey was also notably a star in Game of Thrones as the character Lyanna Mormont when she was just 12 years old.^[1]

Discourse about her casting started on the /r/thelastofus^[2] subreddit when Redditor TheFitzyFella asked, "Is anyone else disappointed with the casting of Bella Ramsey as Ellie?" on April 6th, 2021. "Like, Pedro Pascal as Joel, that’s grand, because he looks like him. Bella Ramsey looks nothing like Ellie and I’m afraid it’s going to put me off the HBO series," they wrote. The post received over 270 upvotes and 140 comments in four years.

Spread

Discourse continued in 2022, following the release of trailers and promotional photos for the then-upcoming series that showed Bella Ramsey as Ellie.

For instance, on December 16th, 2022, X^[3] user @NaughtyNDC tweeted, "There seems to be a lot of discourse surrounding Bella Ramsey playing Ellie in the new footage. ACTORS DO NOT NEED TO LOOK THE EXACT SAME AS THE SOURCE MATERIAL," receiving over 5,700 likes in three years (shown below).

On January 20th, 2023, Redditor Scary-Sea-8348 reposted a video to the /r/mildyinfuriating^[12] subreddit from YouTuber^[13] Synthetic Man, calling the clip, "YouTuber with 100k subs bullies the actress Bella Ramsey for her appearance," gaining over 2,100 upvotes in two years.

On January 21st, X^[4][5] user @remzinhah tweeted about Ramsey's casting in Portuguese, roughly translating to, "So many actresses in the world to play Ellie from The Last of Us and they immediately chose the ugliest one." The tweet received over 8.1 million views and 9,400 likes (shown below). It was later deleted.^[6]

On March 30th, 2023, Redditor thelazure reposted a tweet to the /r/ThelastofusHBOseries^[14] subreddit, which said that Bella Ramsey once lost a role for not having the "Hollywood look," gaining over 14,000 upvotes in two years (shown below).

On March 26th, 2025, X^[7] user @ManletThorin tweeted one of Ramsey's headshots, writing, "Barn Owl physiognomy." Over two months, the tweet received over 33,000 likes (shown below).

On March 29th, Sam Hyde collaborator and comedian Charls Carrol posted a tweet^[8] on his X account, @goodcharls, using the same photo of Ramsey, writing, "Rather be dead than look like this." The tweet gained over 26,000 likes in two months (shown below).

On March 30th, 2025, X^[9] user @vocalcry quote-tweeted Carrol with a photo of himself and question marks as the caption, receiving over 11,000 likes in two months (shown below).

On April 29th, X^[10] user @Rothmus posted a meme that compared Bella Ramsey to the Pale Lady from Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, receiving over 11,000 likes in a week (shown below).

On May 1st, 2025, X^[11] user @MrHooboMaster quote-tweeted the abovementioned tweet, criticizing the poster and others by writing, "If you're an adult tweeting things like this, you're just evil. If you're a younger person doing it, your parents have failed at parenting. Being a celebrity doesn't mean they're completely immune to people mocking something they can't change." It gained over 14,000 likes in five days (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References