Amanda Nguyen — a 34-year-old scientist, civil rights activist and the first Vietnamese woman to go to space — has opened up about her depression stemming from the “tsunami of harassment” after the viral Blue Origin spaceflight.
In April 2025, Nguyen, alongside Katy Perry, Gayle King, Aisha Bowe, Kerianne Flynn and Lauren Sanchez, flew to space via Jeff Bezos‘ Blue Origin New Shepard Spacecraft.
While the space mission was historic in many ways, Nguyen admitted the backlash made her feel like the flight — alongside her many accomplishments as an activist for sexual assault survivors and a bioastronautics research scientist — was “buried under an avalanche of misogyny”.
“When Gayle called to check in on me in the aftermath of the spaceflight, I told her my depression might last for years,” Nguyen shared in an Instagram post.
“Another dream turned into a nightmare.”
The civil rights activist revealed she didn’t leave Texas for a week, and was unable to get out of bed due to the coverage surrounding the flight.
“At that scale, even a small fraction of negativity becomes staggering. It amounted to millions of hostile impressions — an onslaught no human brain has evolved to endure,” Nguyen penned.
“I felt like collateral damage, my moment of justice mutilated.”
But despite the negativity, Nguyen admitted she felt “it was important [for her] to remain strong” publicly, as the flight had “uplifted” many things she wanted to highlight, including women’s health and the reconciliation between the US and Vietnam.
“I continue to be deeply grateful and count all the ways in which the flight has transformed for good,” she continued.
“The breast cancer research I flew was uplifted by the media, bringing attention to women’s health. The flight opened doors to speak to world leaders and advance my fight for rape survivors’ rights in an unprecedented way.
“For the 30th anniversary of reconciliation between the U.S. and Vietnam, the lotus seeds I flew were exchanged as a symbol of peace. My goal of science as a tool for diplomacy was achieved.
“There has been overwhelming good that has come out of this.”
Eight months on from the flight, Nguyen says she’s “glad that the fog of grief has started to lift”, thanking Vietnam, her friends and her community for saving her.
Nguyen, whose parents came to the US as refugees after fleeing the Vietnam War, added: “When Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon, bombs rained down on Vietnam. This year, when my boat refugee family looked at the sky, instead of bombs, they saw the first Vietnamese woman in space.”
“We came on boats, and now we’re on spaceships,” Nguyen wrote.
Concluding her incredibly candid statement, Nguyen wrote, “It is the greatest gift this holiday season that I can feel the fog lifting.”
“I can tell Gayle it’s not going to take years,” she penned, followed by a December 27, 2025, diary entry that reads “I’m happy to report the depression has lifted,” alongside a photo of her as a student at Harvard.
Nguyen isn’t the only one who’s spoken out about the backlash. Perry admitted the backlash made her feel like a “human piñata”.
The Teenage Dream singer’s comments were in response to a fan page, assuring the fan she was “ok” with the backlash, saying she took the hate “with grace”.
When the Blue Origin flight first took place, onlookers alongside celebrities like Emily Ratajkowski and Olivia Wilde, slammed the mission, with Ratajkowski calling it “end-time shit” in a scathing TikTok.
“You say that you care about Mother Earth, and it’s about Mother Earth, and you’re going up in a spaceship that is built and paid for by a company that’s single-handedly destroying the planet,” Ratajowski said.
“Look at the state of the world and think about how many resources went into putting these women into space. For what?”
Insiders have also claimed that Perry and her ex, Orlando Bloom, got into an “explosive” fight over the space mission, with the Lord of the Rings actor reportedly calling it “cringeworthy” and “embarrassing”.
The reports of the fight have never been confirmed.
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