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You can't keep a good Ghostbuster down. Making her first talk show interview since hitting back at the vile, racist Twitter trolls who attacked her this week, Leslie Jones sat down with her former Saturday Night Live co-host Seth Meyers on Thursday (July 21) where she opened up about social media, bullying and how the fiasco was poorly handled by the micro-blogging social site.
Appearing on Late Night With Seth Meyers, the Ghostbusters star, who called the incident "terrible," told the host, "What's scary about the whole thing is that the insults didn't hurt me. Unfortunately I'm used to the insults… But what scared me was the injustice of a gang of people jumping against you for such a sick cause…"
"Everybody has an opinion and it all comes at you at one time. And they really believe in what they believe in, and it's so mean! Like it's so gross and mean and unnecessary," she added.
Jones also addressed how her celebrity platform was able to make a difference in how the attack against her was remediated — eventually, the site suspended the ringleader's account — shedding light on how the abuse and hate speech she endured may have continued had she not spoken up.
"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.' All those people would still have an account," she said, adding, "I met the CEO of Twitter… He was cool, they helped me out. We got a whole bunch of accounts taken off Twitter, because it's not right to gang up on people."
The actress also clarified that despite rumors otherwise, she hasn't left the social media platform for good and doesn't plan to.
"First of all… I did not leave Twitter," Jones explained, laughing. "I didn't leave. I just signed out 'cause I wanted to deal with what was going on… 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!"
After Meyers revealed an uplifting and supportive video message from Jones's fans, the SNL actress shared a message of her own, slamming critics who claimed that her actions to get the hateful users who had attacked her removed from the site.
"A lot of people came came at me with, 'Hey, you messed with freedom of speech!'," Jones said. "Hey, hate speech and freedom of speech: two different things."
[Watch Leslie and Seth react to Game of Thrones' "Battle of the Bastards" episode below.]
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Source: Leslie Jones on Twitter Racists: Hate Speech + Freedom of Speech 'Two Different Things'
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