How Flo From Progressive Helped AT&T’s Lily After Online Sexual Harassment
Milana Vayntrub, the actress behind the popular AT&T commercial character Lily, has opened up about facing online sexual harassment and how she received support from fellow commercial star Stephanie Courtney, aka Flo from Progressive.
In a new profile from the New York Times, Vayntrub recalled how she first auditioned for the character of Lily, an upbeat AT&T employee, when she was 26 years old and “dressed like I imagined a friendly girl would dress.”
She became the face of the telecommunications company between 2013 and 2016 before taking a hiatus. However, she revived the character in 2020 during the pandemic, which she revealed was her own idea.
“This time, Lily would be working from home. AT&T greenlit the proposal. Vayntrub directed the spots herself. She filmed the national ads in her own house, recreating Lily’s hair and makeup herself under the remote supervision of a professional,” the Times profile states.
But after returning to the limelight, Vayntrub said she received unwanted attention and online sexual harassment from internet trolls.
The Times reports, “In the summer of 2020, seemingly overnight, one small but vocal corner of the internet fixed its gaze upon Vayntrub and began referring to her by a new name: Mommy Milkers, a reference to her breasts. En masse, people spammed the comment sections of AT&T’s social-media posts with lewd declarations and emojis of glasses of milk.”
Vayntrub, who said she couldn’t escape the comments, even on her personal social media accounts, addressed the situation in an Instagram Live video in August 2020.
“Maybe it just has to do with being a person on the internet, or maybe it’s specific to being a woman on the internet,” Vayntrub said in the video, per Variety. “But all of these comments — it hurts my feelings.”
She noted she received sexist comments and private messages asking for nude photos. “It’s bringing up, like, a lot of feelings of sexual assault,” she continued. “I am just like, you know, walking my dog and getting messages from people who have distorted my pictures to get likes on their accounts. I am not consenting to any of this. I do not want any of this.”
However, during all this, Vayntrub received a phone call from an unexpected person: Flo from Progressive. Stephanie Courtney, who has portrayed Flo since 2008, told The Times that she hadn’t faced the same kind of harassment as Vayntrub but wanted to reach out and offer her support.
The two women felt a natural bond with each other as two of America’s most famous TV commercial characters.
Vayntrub said that Courtney was a good listener and that the phone call made her feel “like there were people on my team.”
Despite the negative experience with internet trolls, Vayntrub told the publication she doesn’t regret returning to the role and said the benefits “one hundred percent” outweigh the cons.
