INQUISITR.COM / Entertainment

Leslie Jones Gives First Interview Since Racist Attacks, Has Choice Words For Cyberbullies

By Lawrence Arboleda
Published on: 22:40 PST, Jul 21, 2016

Leslie Jones has given her first interview since the ugly Twitter scandal that caused her to temporarily leave the social media site on Thursday, sitting down with former Saturday Night Live co-star Seth Meyers on The Late Night, the Entertainment Tonight reports.

Jones has become the target of online trolls since the all-female led reboot of the iconic supernatural comedy flick Ghostbusters hit the cinemas last week. The attacks against the actress have been nothing short of vile. She has been called the N-word numerous times. Some trolls went so far as to send her photographs of apes.

It got so bad that Leslie Jones tweeted that she’s leaving Twitter “with tears and a very sad heart.”

“All this cause I did a movie.You can hate the movie but the s**t I got today…wrong,” she tweeted.

As such, the racist tweets directed against Leslie Jones were so vile and mean that the CEO of Twitter Jack Dorsey stepped in and used his social media powers to ban one online trolls who hounded the actress on the social media site.

After a couple of days, just when people thought that Jones was already gone for good from the social media site, the Ghostbusters actress tweeted that she was back, joking that no one else but her is going to live tweet Game of Thrones.

Her return to Twitter has been met with approval (although, quite a handful resumed their hurling of vitriol against the actress). Leslie Jones showed them their appreciation with another tweet, which also mentioned her upcoming interview with Seth Meyers.

The former SNL star aired her frustrations about her recent hurtful social media experience on Late Night With Seth Meyers, saying that it was unfortunate that she’s already used to the insults.

“Unfortunately I’m used to the insults. That’s unfortunate,” she told Meyers. “But what scared me was the injustice of a gang of people jumping against you for such a sick cause… Like it’s so gross and mean and unnecessary. So it was just like one of those things of, like, ‘Okay, so if I hadn’t said anything nobody would have ever knew about this.'”

Jones also grabbed the opportunity to set the record straight: she never officially quit Twitter. She only planned on leaving the social media site for an indefinite time.

“It’s like, that’s my favorite restaurant. I love the food there. Three people just got shot in front of me. Y’all need to get some security,” she said.

Seth Meyers then showed Leslie Jones a video montage of numerous clips from fans showing their support for the actress following her vicious encounter with trolls on Twitter.

“It makes you go, ‘Ah man, you know, I’m not going away,'” said a visibly touched Jones after watching the video.

The 48-year-old comedian actress also had some choice words for the trolls, particularly those who were of the opinion that she violated freedom of speech when she asked the Twitter CEO to ban those who cyberbullied her.

“Hey, hate speech and freedom of speech, two different things,” she said.

In an interview with ETCanada, Dan Aykroyd, one of the original Ghostbusters, recently spoke up in defense of Leslie Jones, calling those who attacked her “losers” and “insignificant gnats.”

“They have no lives of their own,” he said. “They can probably barely pay for the Wi-Fi they’re using, probably no jobs. I would say you’re looking at obese white men between 50 and 60 who are active Klan members or members of the Aryan Nation, and there are millions of them.”

The 64-year-old comedian also compared the trolls to the Republican party.

“There’s a lot of white racist hatred out there that’s going to channel into support for the Republican ticket — maybe in the false belief that these people share their views,” Aykroyd said. “I don’t think that Trump and Pence are as racist as the people who attacked Leslie Jones. I really don’t.”

[Image via Late Night with Seth Meyers/YouTube]

Share this article: Leslie Jones Gives First Interview Since Racist Attacks, Has Choice Words For Cyberbullies
ghostbusters Leslie Jones
More from Inquisitr