Ella Purnell exploded onto the Hollywood scene in recent years, and she made a triumphant comeback to Prime Video before the end of the 2025 TV schedule with the premiere of Fallout Season 2. Her sudden boost in popularity in the last five years has led to more than just more opportunities in showbiz; as she learned after posting an innocent photo of some wildlife, followers on social media can make a lot of noise. After buzz about her eating baby turtles began to spread, she made a change to her Instagram comments.
Since 2021, Purnell has gone from joining the Star Trek universe as part of the voice cast of Star Trek: Prodigy to a season of Sweet Pea to having an unfortunate fate on Yellowjackets. That's not even to mention Fallout, which premiered in 2024 and quickly turned into a massive hit after becoming available streaming with an Amazon Prime Video subscription. She gets to enjoy that success without the intense makeup that Walton Goggins wears to play The Ghoul as well, but increased fame comes at a cost. Speaking with Cosmopolitan UK, Purnell shared:
I posted some pictures of baby turtles, and all the commenters thought I was eating them for some reason. And anyway that was turtlegate, and after turtlegate, I was like, ‘I can't be doing this’ I can't be fighting with people on the internet about eating turtles. So I don't have my comments on and it actually was so freeing.
What started as some photos of baby turtles escalated in some very unexpected directions, based on the actress' comments to the outle.t It does sound like "turtlegate" ended before any real damage could be done, and Purnell seems all the happier for it. I will say one thing in defense of the commenters, though, after perusing her turtle photos for myself. Take a look:
The first three photos do show her innocently enjoying being around baby turtles in Mexico, but I had to laugh when Slide #3 went from a beautiful video of baby turtles on a sunset beach to Slide #4, which features a pretty tasty-looking taco right on the sand. Another photo showed more tacos, and even some pastries that look like turtle shells. Still, with as cute as those little turtles were, I wouldn't want a comment section full of accusations about eating them either!
The return of Fallout for Season 2 brought Ella Purnell back into the spotlight, and not just because she and Avatar's Zoë Saldaña rocked the (mostly) same dress on the red carpet. She previewed some huge reunions ahead of the premiere on December 16, the the first episode of the new season didn't disappoint by starting with an epic opening scene. The Season 2 premiere was, as expected, quite violent, but also included a reveal about what changed (and what hadn't) for Lucy in particular since the Season 1 finale.
Fallout is currently trending at #1 in the U.S., according Amazon, and new episodes will continue releasing weekly on Wednesday on the streaming service.
