Well, it’s happened again. Another actor has had to shed a social media account due to harassment from fanatical strangers. Ruby Rose — of Orange is the New Black, John Wick: Chapter 2, and surprise hit of this past weekend, The Meg — was recently cast as Batwoman (Kate Kane) in The CW’s overlapping universe of DC shows, with a possibility of getting her own Batwoman spin-off series. Playing Batwoman clearly means a lot to her, but some people didn’t think she was right for the part for one reason or another, the most ridiculous one being that she’s “not gay enough” to play the lesbian character. Considering how open she’s been about her sexuality, that complaint makes no sense. Maybe they’re confusing her with Justin Bieber?
After nearly a week of Twitter harassment over her casting, Rose deleted the Twitter account she’s had since March 2009. Here’s what it looked like before:
Prior to deleting everything, she shared a final note with her 1.3 million followers in a series of tweets:
“Where on earth did ‘Ruby is not a lesbian therefore she can’t be Batwoman’ come from — has to be the funniest most ridiculous thing I’ve ever read. I came out at 12? And have for the past 5 years had to deal with ‘she’s too gay’ how do y’all flip it like that? I didn’t change. I wish we would all support each other and our journeys. When women and when minorities join forces we are unstoppable… when we tear each other down it’s much more hurtful than from any group. But hey, love a challenge I just wish women and the LGBT community supported each other more, My wish was we were all a little kinder and more supportive of each other… Sending everyone my love and gratitude, it’s been a rollercoaster of a year, this month especially. I am looking forward to getting more than 4 hours of sleep and to break from Twitter to focus all my energy on my next 2 projects. If you need me, I’ll be on my Bat Phone.”
Sadly, Rose isn’t the first performer who’s left social media to avoid aggressive people. Titans star Anna Diop had to close comments on her Instagram over racist bullying, and a similar combination of racist and sexist aggression has pushed Kelly Marie Tran off Instagram and spurred Leslie Jones to take a break from Twitter. Not even a little kid like Millie Bobby Brown can go online without internet creeps spewing hate at her. With social media companies showing little interest in dealing with the toxicity on their platforms, Ruby Rose is unlikely to be the last actor deciding social media just isn’t worth it anymore. If only there were some kind of defender to deal with these bullies. Some kind of dark knight, maybe a sometimes-cousin of Batwoman…
(Via Deadline)