English actor Bella Ramsey, 19, who recently starred as Ellie Williams in the popular HBO series The Last of Us, has a YouTube channel and Instagram account where she has posted faith-based content, including worship songs and reflections.
Ramsey, 19, who played Lyanna Mormont in HBO’s Game of Thrones, shared her faith on her accounts, both called “United Hope,” which she first launched in 2020.
“It’s gonna be full of videos of hope, encouragement, joy, little pockets of, I don’t know, like, positivity,” Ramsey said in her introductory video to her YouTube channel. “And it’s gonna be sharing the light of Jesus, and this is all for him. This isn’t through my strength that I’m doing this.”
According to ChurchLeaders.com, her videos cover everything from Christian living to covers of worship songs, including “Housefires,” “Good Good Father,” “Rebel Heart” and “You Say.” In one video, she covers Hillsong United’s Oceans. The video has over 1.6 million views.
In one video posted in May 2020, Ramsey shared that while she grew up in a Christian household, her beliefs were not a “massive” thing at home despite attending church weekly.
She later experienced the Holy Spirit when she attended another church in her hometown. Ramsey also shared how her faith helped her overcome an eating disorder, which she was first diagnosed with in 2017 after “being away from home for a long period of time.”
In May 2018, Ramsey revealed that she was getting baptized.
“Buzzing to be baptised tonight!!” she tweeted at the time. “My faith is such a massive part of my life, and so now I’m ready to be dunked (yep, it’s a full immersion baptism) and say publicly that Jesus is my Saviour.”
Later that year, the actor announced she had recovered from anorexia nervosa.
“There’s always light at the end of the tunnel, no matter how dim it might seem,” she wrote in October 2018. “I am fortunate to have reached that light, at moments, it felt non-existent. But it was always there.”
“For me, that light was Jesus. My faith played a huge part in my recovery, and so did my family. I don’t know your stories, but I felt compelled to share mine,” she added. “Keep on speaking, do not be silent. Let’s continue to break the silence around mental health.”
Despite being previously vocal about her Christian faith, Ramsey has not posted on her United Hope accounts since December 2020.
In a January 2023 interview with the New York Times, Ramsey said her faith is “a lot quieter” now and told the outlet that she now identifies as non-binary since her “gender has always been very fluid.”
“Being gendered isn’t something that I particularly like, but in terms of pronouns, I really couldn’t care less,” she said.
Last month, she pushed back against backlash for her Last of Us character being lesbian.
“I know people will think what they want to think. But they’re gonna have to get used to it,” she told Variety. “If you don’t want to watch the show because it has gay storylines, because it has a trans character, that’s on you, and you’re missing out. It isn’t gonna make me afraid. I think that comes from a place of defiance.”
Rainn Wilson, the actor who played Dwight Schrute in The Office, recently noted that the Last of Us holds a negative view of Christianity.
“I do think there is an anti-Christian bias in Hollywood. As soon as the David character in The Last of Us started reading from the Bible I knew that he was going to be a horrific villain. Could there be a Bible-reading preacher on a show who is actually loving and kind?” Wilson tweeted on March 11.
Photo courtesy: ©Getty Images/Frazer Harrison/Staff
Milton Quintanilla is a freelance writer and content creator. He is a contributing writer for CrosswalkHeadlines and the host of the For Your Soul Podcast, a podcast devoted to sound doctrine and biblical truth. He holds a Masters of Divinity from Alliance Theological Seminary.
