Leslie Jones mentioned the racism she skilled due to her position within the 2016 “Ghostbusters” film made her cry and shut down her Twitter account.
“The weakness of muthafuckas amazes me,” Jones writes in her memoir “Leslie F*cking Jones: A Memoir.” “I cried not because I was being bullied, but because this is our world and because I can’t believe anyone would do this shit to someone, anyone, for working. This is awful. I am in a movie. Death threats for something as small as that? The world was not as rosy as I’d hoped it was. But none of that shit was about me.”
Jones, a comic book who obtained her fame on “Saturday Night Live,” was certainly one of 4 Ghostbusters, together with comedians Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig and Kate McKinnon, within the all-female 2016 remake of the 1984 authentic movie. In an excerpt from her memoir revealed on Rolling Stone, Jones wrote that whereas the all-female “Ghostbusters” had been the topic of on-line sexism, she acquired additional abuse as a result of she’s a Black lady.
“… I was the one who got most of the hate,” the comic wrote. “For a start, sad keyboard warriors living in their mothers’ basements hated the fact that this hallowed work of perfect art now featured—gasp! horror! — women in the lead roles. Worst of all, of course, was that one of the lead characters was a Black woman. For some men this was the final straw.”
Jones mentioned the web abuse obtained so unhealthy that Jack Dorsey, former Twitter (the platform is now known as X) CEO, assigned additional individuals to look at her account as a result of it was always hacked and despatched racial slurs.
“Of all the women in [director] Paul [Feig] ’s remake of the movie, I was the one who got taken through the ringer,” Jones wrote. “I wonder why . . . Oh, right, because I was a Black girl. I was being sent films of being hanged, of white guys jacking off on my picture, saying, ‘You fucking n****r. We going to kill you.’ Why are people being so evil to each other? How can you sit and type ‘I want to kill you.’ Who does that?”
Jones additionally revealed that she was initially supplied $67,000 for the film however negotiated to get $150,000. She added that the sum was nonetheless lower than what McCarthy and Wiig had been paid for his or her roles within the movie.
When Jason Reitman directed the 2021 film “Ghostbusters: Afterlife,” Jones said it was “insulting” and that it “completely ignored the fact that there had been an all-female version.”
Jones posted on Twitter on the time: “So insulting. Like, fuck us. We didn’t count. It’s like some- thing trump would do. (Trump voice) ‘Gonna redo ghostbusteeeeers, better with men, will be huge. Those women ain’t ghostbusteeeeers’ ugh so annoying. Such a dick move. And I don’t give a fuck I’m saying something!!”
The actor’s new memoir, which has extra candid bombshells, is out there now.
