Leslie Jones opens up about racism, death threats after ‘Ghostbusters’ in new memoir

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An excerpt from the “Saturday Night Live” star’s new book reflects on a particularly harmful time in her career.
In a new excerpt from Leslie Jones’ memoir, the “Saturday Night Live” alum reflects on particularly hard times in her career, including racism she faced and death threats she received after appearing in the 2016 “Ghostbusters” film.
As Variety reported, Jones upcoming book, “Leslie F*cking Jones,” is officially out. The first book from the actress and comedian is described as “brash,” “hilarious,” and “refreshingly uncensored.” In an excerpt published by Rolling Stone, Jones lays it all out there, detailing particularly harmful moments in her career.
Jones specifically recalled death threats and harassment she received after “Ghostbusters,” a female-led reboot that became a target to online trolls, per Variety. She writes that the hatred, “wasn’t just racism and misogyny, either. A lot of it had to do with the fact that I was playing an MTA worker, as though that was something I should be ashamed of. I’d tried to fight back — I was a comic — I was used to someone heckling me, so for every piece of bullshit on Twitter I had a reply.”
She even recalled doing a European press junket, where a journalist specifically asked her, “I don’t like this movie, and you’ve got five minutes to prove to me that it is worth watching.”
The online vitriol was so intense, it led her to deleting her Twitter account altogether after multiple hacking attempts came her way. It got so bad, the CEO of Twitter at the time (Jack Dorsey) specifically reached out to Jones, saying that her account was being monitored and that the company was aware of the hatred being thrown at her.
Jones then writes about a moment where she was forced to tears from all of the attacks. “I can’t believe anyone would do this shit to someone, anyone, for working,” she writes in the memoir. “This is awful. I am in a movie. Death threats for something as small as that?”
The excerpt is available to read now on Rolling Stone, and “Leslie F*cking Jones” is available to purchase now where books are sold.
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