In an echo of the racist cyberbullying against comedian-actress Leslie Jones last month, Fifth Harmony singer Normani Kordei says she is “taking a break from Twitter for now” after a similar social-media barrage.
Apparently triggered when Kordei, 20, paused before saying something positive about bandmate Camila Cabello during a Facebook Live interview last week, the attacks included a tweet in which Kordei’s head was Photoshopped onto a horrifying, black-and-white historic image of a lynched African-American woman. Twitter suspended the account that had posted it. As of Monday afternoon, it remained on the account of a Kordei fan who had posted numerous tweets vigorously defending the singer.
“Over the past four years of being in the public eye I’ve learned to grow a thick skin to critics and those who may not like me,” Kordei wrote in a tweet. “I’ve never been one to deny anyone of their opinions, but over the course of this last week and especially over the last 48 hours I’ve not just been cyberbullied, I’ve been racially cyberbullied with tweets and pictures so horrific and racially charged that I can’t subject myself any longer to the hate.”
Lamenting that other African-American women in the public eye have had to deal with similarly racist social-media posts, Kordei wrote that, “Hiding behind a computer and putting people down, especially for the color of their skin, doesn’t make you cool, it makes you a coward!”
Saying that she had “nothing but love for everyone, even my haters,” Kordei thanked Twitter “for immediately jumping into action when they were alerted to the situation.
The girl group Fifth Harmony is currently on a concert tour.
“Ghostbusters” star Jones returned to Twitter on July 21 following a three-day break after enduing a slew of racist comments, which ultimately led to intervention by the site’s co-founder and the banning of a right-wing technology editor for helping encourage the abuse.
