The daughter of late actor Robin Williams recently made headlines after demanding that fans respect the life and legacy of her late father.
Zelda Williams’ fiery warning to fans to stop creating AI content of her late father shows she’s not the only one insisting it stop.
On Tuesday, Oct. 7, Dr. Bernice King, daughter of the late civil rights activist Dr. Martin Luther King, piggybacked off of Zelda’s demand and pleaded with fans to have the same respect for her father.
Reposting it on X, King wrote, “I concur concerning my father. Please stop.”
Though it’s hard to tell exactly how many AI or deepfake videos and images have been created of Dr. King and Williams, it’s safe to say there have been at least thousands online.
Many appear to have been created by OpenAI’s new video generator app called Sora 2 and posted on social media platforms like Tik Tok or Instagram for entertainment.
Zelda ignited the conversation on Monday, Oct. 6, when she first confronted fans with a statement on her Instagram story.
On a black screen with white letters, she wrote in a now-deleted post, “Please, just stop sending me AI videos of Dad. Stop believing I wanna see it or that I’ll understand, I don’t and I won’t.”
While some people may enjoy that kind of content of their loved ones, Zelda doesn’t approve and according to her, her father wouldn’t either.
“If you’re just trying to troll me, I’ve seen way worse, I’ll restrict and move on. But please, if you’ve got any decency, just stop doing this to him and to me, to everyone even, full stop. It’s dumb, it’s a waste of time and energy, and believe me, it’s NOT what he’d want,” wrote the “Shrimp” star.
She explained further why she detested these “condensed down” videos of a people’s “legacies.”
Zelda Williams (the daughter of the great Robin Williams) sure had a lot to say about the “Studio Ghibli style” AI images that have been trending recently.
— Alb3rt0 (@APPictures9) March 28, 2025
I think those people should read these posts and really think about what they’re doing. pic.twitter.com/L1rFJYw1Pg
“You’re not making art, you’re making disgusting, over-processed hotdogs out of the lives of human beings, out of the history of art and music, and then shoving them down someone else’s throat hoping they’ll give you a little thumbs up and like it,” she said before ending her message by calling it, “Gross.”
Like so many individuals in the world, Zelda doesn’t seem to be a fan of artificial intelligence at all and she shunned people, calling it “the future,” in her continued rant.
“AI is just badly recycling and regurgitating the past to be re-consumed,” she wrote in another deleted post on her Instagram Story. “You are taking in the Human Centipede of content, and from the very very end of the line, all while the folks at the front laugh and laugh, consume and consume.”
On People, fans joined Zelda in slamming people who created videos of the comedian.
One person said, “God people can really be twisted to do that, smh.”
Someone else wrote, “It’s just cruel that people would do this, and then SEND them to her! Her FATHER is dead! He killed himself, rather than live through his body and brain turning against him.”
A third person wrote on their Instagram post saying, “Wow people don’t have the tiny tiniest bit of empathy and decency, so incredible cruel to do something like that.”
Zelda was 25 when her Academy Award-winning father took his life in 2014. The “Jumanji” star’s body was found by his assistant in his stepson’s empty bedroom.
According to his widow, Susan Schneider Williams, the “Mrs. Doubtfire” star had been battling depression for years and received a then-recent diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease. She reportedly claimed that Robin showed no signs of suicidal thoughts before taking his life.
