Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order Star Cameron Monaghan's Heated Redhead Tweets Have the Internet in a Frenzy

In case you weren't already aware, Gotham and Shameless star Cameron Monaghan stars in the recently released video game Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order as Cal Kestis, a former Jedi trainee that gets tangled up with the Empire in the years following Order 66. But Monaghan and his character share more than just a voice as Kestis is clearly modeled after him, and that includes the red hair. Which is part of how Monaghan got into a bit of a sticky situation on Twitter yesterday.

The short version is, folks have created mods for the popular video game already, and one of them happens to significantly alter Kestis' hair -- specifically, it removes the red in favor of a darker brown/black. This isn't terribly uncommon, and one of the most popular genre of gaming mods has to do with altering appearances. Monaghan happened to catch people talking about such a mod online, and responded with some fairly heated tweets about how it was all about "ginger hate" and so on.

"Gotta love that there are insecure dudes out there who can't handle playing as a redhead," the 26-year-old actor tweeted. "Seriously, ginger hate is still a thing? We've gotta be one of the only groups left where it's not taboo to shit on us for being born or looking a certain way, right?"

"I mean that South Park episode was like 15 years ago," he continued. "The joke is pretty dated. And even at the time, the whole joke was about how arbitrarily deeming a group of people as 'other' is stupid and ridiculous. Not that I care. I'm the lead in a freaking Star Wars game and having a great career and great time! But I do genuinely find the weird superiority complex of these insecure men making comments about my appearance kinda... amusing? Like, are they mad because their girlfriends have a crush on me or something? Just kidding, we know they don't have girlfriends."

Monaghan later deleted the tweets, claiming that he was simply having some fun and trying to point out that it's OK to be different.

Mannnnn Twitter really can’t take a lighthearted joke.

People who look different from the norm are awesome. Redheads are awesome. If someone tells you you aren’t great because you are different from whatever is considered “standard”, just know you rock. The end.

— Cameron Monaghan (@cameronmonaghan) November 27, 2019

But the Internet has since taken hold of his comments, and it doesn't seem likely that they'll be giving them up at any point soon. On the one hand, there seems to be a lot of support for Monaghan (it must be weird to see a character so intrinsically based on yourself be altered), but on the other, there's plenty of folks confused or flabbergasted by his response as well.

Keep reading to check out what folks are saying online!

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is currently available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. You can check out all of our previous coverage of the latest and greatest Star Wars game right here.