Halle Berry has long kept her children's faces off social media in the interest of protecting their privacy — and some of the comments that surfaced below a rare video post Halle shared last week underscore why she's so careful.
The post was a video of her 6-year-old son Maceo hilariously clomp-clomp-clomping across a wooden floor and attempting to walk up a staircase in what appears to be a pair of his mom's white leather stiletto boots.
"#Quarantine Day 12 🥴," Halle captioned the clip, surely one of the thousands if not millions of Instagram posts showing funny ways folks are coping with stay-at-home mandates as the COVID-19 pandemic continues.
"Aren't kids the Greatest???" one clearly amused Insta user commented. Halle agreed, writing back, "all day eryday! ♥️."
Not all Halle's followers were up for the moment of levity, though.
A number of users criticized the mother of two for letting her son wear heels, either via remarks like "I hope that's the daughter," referring to Halle's 12-year-old daughter, Nahla, or with more directly judgy comments.
Halle took their words in stride.
"🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽 harmless fun. Tryna survive right now. You feel me? ♥️," she replied to one troll (via People).
In response to a user who commented that Maceo was "having the time of her life lol," Halle wrote back, "well it's a he (😂) and he is having a ball. Tryna cope the best he can. Laughter helps a lot right now ! ♥️."
She added: "It's tight on these kids right now. Let's have a laugh and some compassion yawl ! ♥️🙏🏽 ," in another reply.
As for the danger factor, Halle assured followers everyone was fine, posting, "No broken bones ta-day. Thank God. But this quarantine is Real REAL ! ♥️🙏🏽."
She also managed to stick with her "no-kids' faces on Instagram" rule with the clip.
"I just don't want to plaster them all over the internet. That just doesn't feel right for me," Halle explained during an appearance on "Today" last May. "They're gonna do that soon enough. That's gonna be their life when they grow up, and they will choose when that starts. I've fought really hard to protect their privacy, and I just want them to have their life and have it be theirs."