Y&R’s Michelle Stafford Reveals How She Deals With Online Haters

Social media offers the opportunity for fans to interact more directly with their favorite soap stars and Michelle Stafford (Phyllis, THE YOUNG & THE RESTLESS) enjoys posting to Instagram and Twitter and having some back and forth with the viewers. Well, until things take a turn, as they often do.

Although the actress admitted that she can’t read all of the comments and replies to her posts because there are just too many, she does enjoy checking them out. “Every now and then I want to see what folks are saying,” Stafford confided during an interview with JLJ Media. “I want to communicate to people.”

Of course, being the internet where people can hide behind screen names, they often feel free to say whatever they like without taking into consideration who they might be offending. However, Stafford insists she doesn’t get too bothered by it.

“If somebody says something nasty, it doesn’t matter,” she explained. “It really doesn’t. If I get something rude… you know, if it’s too rude, I won’t respond, I’ll just block. But if I can think of something funny to say, then of course, I have to!”

Still, Stafford is aware that sometimes her humor isn’t taken the right way. “On Twitter, I think somebody said, “There’s Phyllis looking like a stripper,’” she recalled. “And I actually did say, ‘Hey, excuse me. That’s an insult to strippers.’ And then everybody started attacking that person. And I’m like, ‘Oh… I was just…’”

The Y&R star does wish that some fans were better at understanding that they’re not talking with Phyllis but with her portrayer. “When Phyllis slept with Jack and threw it in Diane’s face,” Stafford revealed, “I got more than I would think, people calling me a whore. ‘You are such a whore.’ I was just like, ‘No, I’m not Phyllis. No, you’re talking to me.’”

But no matter what, Stafford takes it all in stride. “I’m never mad,” she insists. “Ever. I mean, I got enough going on with my crazy kids!”