The Summer I Turned Pretty’s Gavin Casalegno Reacts To Jeremiah Critics

Ahead of the third and final season of The Summer I Turned Pretty, the show issued a directive on social media. “Cousins is our safe place. Everything good, everything magical. Let’s keep the conversation kind this summer,” the team wrote, adding that there’s “zero tolerance” for hate speech, bullying, targeting the cast and crew, and harassing or doxxing community members.

In a new interview with The New York Times, Gavin Casalegno, who plays Jeremiah Fisher, praised Prime Video for “stepping in” to combat conflict. But he added that it’s “not really going so well.”

Jeremiah Is “Not Me”

If it feels like everyone around you is watching The Summer I Turned Pretty Season 3, well, it’s because they kind of are. Nielsen’s streaming TV ratings for the week of July 21 show that the series was No. 7 in original titles. It trailed just behind Love Island USA, which had just wrapped its viral seventh season.

With so many eyes on the conclusion of Belly, Conrad, and Jeremiah’s love triangle, strong opinions are flying, with fans weighing in on everything from Jeremiah’s betrayal and engagement ring for Belly to his obsession with a very specific mirror-glaze cake. As he sternly told the bride-to-be, “The whole flavor profile depends on the bitterness of the dark chocolate, and the sweet tartness of the raspberry.”

Casalegno told The New York Times that he’s aware fans “tend to dislike” Jeremiah, but he doesn’t personally follow the criticism online. He also doesn’t watch the show himself. “I think it’s important to also understand and realize that this is a fictional story — and it’s also not me,” he said. “I don’t think there’s a single human being in the world who can carry the emotional negativity to the degree that stuff like this happens.”

While Casalegno and his character are both “very social,” they diverge when it comes to “the immature side of things and the partying,” he said. “I was never a partyer. I don’t even like going to work parties. It’s not who I am at all.”

Addressing The Fandom

Casalegno isn’t alone in calling out hate. During Season 2, Jenny Han, author of The Summer I Turned Pretty books and co-showrunner of the series, urged viewers to “be mindful” of how they discuss the show and its cast. At the time, some fans’ criticism of the newly introduced character of Conrad and Jeremiah’s cousin, Skye, turned to vitriol toward the actor who played them, Elsie Fisher.

“The Summer I Turned Pretty community is one of inclusivity,” Han wrote on Instagram at the time. “The hurtful comments directed at [the] cast are not in the spirit of the show.”