Letitia Wright has responded to fans thirsting for her and Shuri from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
The last time Wright became a focus on social media, it wasn’t for the best of reasons as she posted some highly questionable tweets, to say the least. Though, the actress is quite tired of that subject, seeing how she blew up at The Hollywood Reporter for continuing to focus on it.
Lucky for her, talk about her Twitter past has died down, something aided by her fantastic performance in Marvel Studios’ Wakanda Forever.
Now, the actress is back in the spotlight—but this time, it’s for a far better and more lighthearted reason.
The World Thirsts for Shuri
A new TikTok trend has seen users thirsting over Black Panther’s Letitia Wright and her character of Shuri, which even led to the star responding to them herself.
The trend stems from this TikTok video from user @br4tzqlla, which shows the user thirsting for Letitia Wright—mainly in the form of an imaginary Vibranium strap.
The video’s title makes its naughty intentions clear, claiming that Wright’s “just making sure that Vibranium strap is soaked enough for me when she comes home.”
From there, many similar edits and memes from a wide host of people were created using the ‘Vibranium Strap’ meme.
One of those videos had user @trinitytheepony joking how “[they] just know it would have [them] unable to walk after.”
Eventually, that caused the actress herself to create her own TikTok to respond to all the memes—but not in a bad way.
Wright noted that the attention was “super sweet” and that she “saw all of the edit videos:”
“So, I’m trying to sleep, and I went through the rabbit hole of TikTok and saw all of the edit videos, and you lot are fantastic. And that’s super sweet. Wait, there’s some funny ones on there. I’m cracking up, but yeah, basically, I had to make a TikTok account. I don’t know what I’m gonna post on there. I’m still thinking about it, but yeah, shout out you lot, though. Go on. Making me famous on TikTok and that, okay.”
She continued, making it clear that “[she’s seen] everything:”
“I see you all trying to pretend that I didn’t see what y’all create. I saw everything. I saw everything. Anyway… I’m putting my hat into this thing. I need to fix it, but yeah.”
Many took her second message in a negative light, something the actress went on to clear up on her Instagram story.
Wright shared that “[she’s] not here to spoil youse lot’s fun:”
“Hol’ up, hol’ up, hol’ up. I’m not here to spoil youse lot’s fun. So if you want me to delete it and carry on as normal, then cool. I just thought it was funny, and I thought I needed to make an official one so that no one will pretend to be me. That’s pretty much why I made it. So if you guys feel your fun is gonna be spoilt or whatever, I can delete that real quick, and you lot can carry on. But yeah, it’s cool.”
What's Next for Shuri In the MCU?
This new trend is certainly an interesting turn of events for Wright.
Hopefully, she’s truly enjoying it because these sorts of memes and trends will only continue to heighten during her journey in the MCU. If it’s currently at a Vibranium strap, who knows how it’ll evolve in a few years' time?
The end of her debut as the titular Black Panther left Shuri in an interesting place with an unclear future. When might fans be able to see more of the character they’re thirsting so hard over?
Well, if Julia Louis-Dreyfus is truly looking to start a war with Wakanda over Vibranium, as it seems she is, then maybe Wright’s Panther could show up to fight that threat—which may even be the entire Thunderbolts team.
Then there’s both Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars, which are basically a given for most of the characters in the MCU to appear. If she continues holding the mantle left behind by her brother, then Shuri will almost certainly play a key role in both big crossovers.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is now streaming in theaters worldwide.
