Leslie Jones trapped by Twitter abuse
Leslie Jones felt "trapped" when she was abused on Twitter.
The ‘Ghostbusters’ actress briefly quit the social networking website earlier this summer when she was inundated with racist abuse, and she has now revealed things got even worse when the trolls obtained her personal email address and began sending her death threats.
She told Time magazine: "I was in my apartment by myself, and I felt trapped.
"When you’re reading all these gay and racial slurs, it was like, I can’t fight y’all. I didn’t know what to do. Do you call the police? Then they got my email, and they started sending me threats that they were going to cut off my head and stuff they do to ‘N words.’ It’s not done to express an opinion, it’s done to scare you."
As a result of the harassment, Milo Yiannopoulos – who is well-known for attacking people online and has branded himself "the most fabulous supervillain on the internet" – was permanently banned from Twitter.
However, he has accused Leslie of faking being upset and offended in order to get ahead in her career.
He said: "She is one of the stars of a Hollywood blockbuster.
"It takes a certain personality to get there. It’s a politically aware, highly intelligent star using this to get ahead. I think it’s very sad that feminism has turned very successful women into professional victims."
The 48-year-old actress previously insisted she wasn’t "hurt" by the insults as she’s "used to" being racially abused, but was upset at being bombarded with messages by a "gang" of people.
She said: "The insults didn’t hurt me. Unfortunately, I’m used to the insults.
"[What scared me] was the injustice of a gang of people jumping against you for such a sick cause.
"They really believe in what they believe in and it’s so mean!"
Leslie previously said she was in a "personal hell" over the messages she had received.
The ‘Saturday Night Live’ star decided to "expose" the trolls so retweeted some of the messages, which included calling her an "ape", a "big lipped coon" and "the source of AIDS" and after pleading with Twitter to do something, CEO Jack Dorsey worked to help her get Milo and some of the other users removed from the micro-blogging site.
She explained: "It was one of those things of, ‘If I didn’t say anything, nobody would have ever have known about this. We got a whole bunch of accounts taken off of Twitter because it’s not right.
"Hey, hate speech and freedom of speech – two different things."
