Ian Somerhalder has been speaking his heart out.
In Entertainment Weekly editor Samantha Highfill's debut book, I Was Feeling Epic: An Oral History of The Vampire Diaries, the 45-year-old actor took a look back on how some toxic fan behavior impacted his experience with the hit fantasy series, per PEOPLE Magazine.
Opening up about the darker side of online fandom that emerged during the show’s eight-season run from 2009 to 2017, Somerhalder established that used to be team "Delena."
"I was the biggest Delena fan ever until I realized that the fandom had the ability to turn on people and become really, really mean," Somerhalder said in the book.
As fans will know, in the series Nina Dobrev's Elena was caught in a love triangle between brothers Damon, played by Ian Somerhalder, and Stefan Salvatore, depicted by Paul Wesley. This sparked the “Delena” versus “Stelena” divide.
"I was like, ‘Wait, whoa, whoa — this is a fictional show with fictional characters, we can’t be mean to other people for real.’ It did change my appreciation of fandom," he continued and added, "I don't like people being mean to one another. It's a toxic cancer to society," after which he resigned from the chat.