Cyberbullying is no joke, and it can come in droves when you have millions of followers like Fifth Harmony's Normani Kordei. Combatting hate on the internet is not an easy task; Normani knows this firsthand because it caused her to quit Twitter last year.
The cyberbullying stemmed from a comment Normani made about Camila Cabello that was interpreted as shade-throwing, causing chaos on Twitter. Now Kordei is opening up about the pain it caused her.
“I was on tour when it happened, and that made it even worse because I was away from home,” Kordei told Refinery29. “It was a really hard time. Being on the road, having to do meet-and-greets, having to do shows, pretending like nothing was wrong when it was such a devastating time for me. It was really toxic for me. I would literally go online and see racial comments about myself, and images of me being edited [to show people] trying to harm me and hurt me in terrible ways. It was really ugly.”
Kordei mentioned that she almost left the tour because the hate left her feeling depressed. She ended up taking a break from Twitter for two months to cope and feel better again. “All I wanted to do was feel safe, go crawl in my bed and be in my house with people that genuinely know my heart.”
Normani also talked about how social media is an easy space for hate to take over. She thinks we should instead be focused on using these platforms to educate each other. “Use that [social media] for good, as opposed to abusing it and taking it for granted—making it an ugly thing, an ugly experience for everybody,” she said.
Of course, because the singer is such a powerful human being, she used the entire experience to remind herself of her own worth and become stronger. “Don’t start believing what people are telling you,” she said. “It took me a while [to learn how to do that]. Ultimately, I came out even stronger. I’m sad it had to happen that way in order for me to be as strong as I am now.”
What a badass. Don’t let the haters stop your shine, girl.