Leslie Jones Has Called Out A Publisher For Giving Her Harasser A Massive Book Deal
"You still help them spread their hate."
Last year Leslie Jones was driven off Twitter after facing a barrage of racist and sexist abuse.
Jones’ personal website was also hacked and private images of her were posted online, along with images of her passport and drivers license.
The abuse was kickstarted by Milo Yiannopoulis, a right-wing journalist. Yiannopoulis was eventually banned from Twitter after abusing Jones on the website.
Now Yiannopoulis has reportedly secured a massive $250,000 book deal with publishing company Simon & Schuster.
“I met with top execs at Simon & Schuster earlier in the year and spent half an hour trying to shock them with lewd jokes and outrageous opinions,” he said. “I thought they were going to have me escorted from the building — but instead they offered me a wheelbarrow full of money.”
The book deal has led to calls for a boycott of the company.
In response to this disgusting validation of hate, we will not cover a single @simonschuster book in 2017. https://t.co/NAJhTgdeyX
— Chicago Rev of Books (@bookschicago) December 29, 2016
same 1st Amend/capitalism that allows book publisher to pay $250k to a racist allows me to publicly vow to never buy another book of theirs https://t.co/xhAhx2fnrp
— Wesley Lowery (@WesleyLowery) December 29, 2016
Simon & Schuster have released a statement saying that they “Don’t condone discrimination or hate speech in any form.”
Statement regarding recent acquisition by @threshold_books, another division of @simonschuster pic.twitter.com/HTEs1fnsjB
— Simon & Schuster (@SimonBooks) December 30, 2016
But Jones responded to that statement by accusing the company of helping Yiannopoulis “spread hate”.
@SimonBooks @threshold_books @simonschuster yea but you still help them spread their hate to even more people.
— Leslie Jones (@Lesdoggg) January 2, 2017
Yiannopoulis has previously announced books that never ended up actually emerging, but the statement from Simon & Schuster is a pretty solid confirmation that this one is real.