After Leslie Jones was faced with a slew of racist messages on Twitter, another Black celebrity has quit the social media site because of the same thing. Normani Kordei, a member of the girl group Fifth Harmony, announced she would be ditching the platform last week. Since then, actresses KeKe Palmer and Zendaya have stepped in to show their support for the singer.
Kordei explained she has learned to be tough in the public eye as she faced criticism but the racist posts pushed her to take a break from Twitter.
To my fans: pic.twitter.com/7yICp10G5Z
— Normani (@Normani) August 7, 2016
“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,” the band member said. “I’m not the first Black female celebrity to deal with this and I’m sure I won’t be the last I want to take this moment to say Love goes much further than hate in this world. 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!”
In response to Kordei’s message to fans, Zendaya tweeted the star to “stay strong.”
Stay strong baby girl, so much love for you😘👏🏽👏🏽 https://t.co/N59jCEFSyW
— Zendaya (@Zendaya) August 7, 2016
She also mentioned such racist hate speech is common for Black women in the entertainment business.
The sad part is that it's so common, that type of racially charged hate as black woman in this industry, you deserve so much more sis.
— Zendaya (@Zendaya) August 7, 2016
KeKe Palmer also offered words of encouragement on Instagram.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BI1Bv7HgZlU/?taken-by=kekepalmer&hl=en
“You are such a beautiful girl Normani, what others say about you is a reflection of them NOT you,” Palmer wrote before sharing what she does to get her mind off of the hate.
Kordai was faced with a flurry of racist tweets after a Facebook Live interview with Fifth Harmony. When she was asked to say something positive about each member, she paused before saying Camila Cabello was “Very quirky. Yeah. Very quirky. Cute.”
The supposed shade caused relentless backlash and led the star to address fans in a note before leaving Twitter for the foreseeable future.
Thoughts. pic.twitter.com/51aZF7zB2O
— Normani (@Normani) August 5, 2016
