YouTube celebrity Zoella has responded after coming under fire after a number of her old tweets were re-circulated online. Scroll below to see her response.
The vlogger, who has 12 million subscribers on YouTube and has been recognised as one of the most powerful social media personalities in the UK, has come in for criticism from fans after posts dating back to 2010 resurfaced on social media.
In the posts, the tweets from Zoella’s account mocked “fat chavs” and gay people, with one post from 2010 reading: “I find it funny when gay men spit…it’s like they’re trying to be a bit macho but never works…”. The tweet has since been deleted.
https://twitter.com/SRRHunty/status/930709885255331842
Another post saw the YouTuber seemingly calling an X Factor contestant a “fat chav”, while another read: “Why are these clothes so expensive’ because they’re designer you tramp, that there in your hand is a dress worth over £2000. Haha”.
I find it so funny how zoella has managed to rebrand herself as some kind of sweet, unproblematic saint pic.twitter.com/aiMpGIe7ER
— lea (@KIMlMELA) November 14, 2017
A number of Twitter users criticised Zoella for the posts, with one writing: “How are people defending zoella from those tweets? She was old enough to not be talking like a nasty teenager does and it wasn’t even just once, it’s multiple times she’s commented on multiple peoples appearance / financial situation.”
https://twitter.com/lustmattel/status/930542389374210054
U guys realise that those tweets from Zoella may be from 7 years ago but she was still 20+ NOT a silly teenager. I think we're justified in being a little shocked ✋?
— katie (@ktlgh) November 14, 2017
https://twitter.com/jxmeselliott/status/930485942107983872
Zoella has now issued a response, stating that she has now deleted all the tweets in question. The star claims that a lot of the tweets were “taken out of context” and that she “wouldn’t use” many of the words now “as part of my language”.
“I’m sorry if I have offended anyone, that was not my intention,” she adds. “Obviously that is not who I am today and I’d like to think I’m a little older and wiser! I’m not perfect and I’ve never claimed to be, I’m only human!”
I’ve seen a few of my old tweets from 7/8 years ago floating around (which I have now deleted) using words like “chav” “skank” and other words I wouldn’t use now as part of my language and lot of them were taken out of context referring to TV shows but I would never say those
— Zoe Sugg (@ZoeSugg) November 15, 2017
things now and I’m sorry if I have offended anyone, that was not my intention. Obviously that is not who I am today and I’d like to think I’m a little older and wiser! I’m not perfect and I’ve never claimed to be, I’m only human!
— Zoe Sugg (@ZoeSugg) November 15, 2017
Back in February 2016, Zoella unknowingly shot a photo of a “random man and his dog on the beach” – which just so happened to be Pink Floyd‘s David Gilmour.