Entertainment

R. Pattz Reacts to FKA Twigs' Racist Haters

by Michelle McGahan

When lame Internet trolls don't have anything nice to say, they don't say anything at all. LOL JK. That's not true at all. Instead, they usually resort to racism or some other cruel way to torment people. And someone who understands this all too well is FKA Twigs, who was on the receiving end of a wealth of unspeakably racist tweets from Robert Pattinson who were upset that she was dating the actor. (Lorde's boyfriend James K. Lowe was also bombarded with similar racist hate tweets.) At the time, FKA Twigs took to Twitter to comment on the hate, saying, "I am genuinely shocked and disgusted at the amount of racism that has been infecting my account the past week. Racism is unacceptable in the real world and it's unacceptable online." And now, her rumored fiancé Robert Pattinson is speaking out about the Internet trolls himself.

In an in-depth interview with NME, R. Pattz — the self-proclaimed "most uncomfortable man on Earth" who is fiercely private about his personal life — did not hold anything back when asked to comment on the awful racist comments FKA Twigs received:

I was talking to my dad about this and I bet him that if he looked up Nelson Mandela's funeral on YouTube, the first comment would be a racist one. And it was, with like a million upvotes. What I don't get is why. I think it’s because most normal people are not commenters — I’ve never met anyone who’s left a comment on anything. It’s just demons who live in basements. You have this weird thing where you end up trying to fight against this faceless blob, where the more you hate it, the bigger it gets, because it’s all in your head.
TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty Images

The points he makes are good ones. One, he calls attention to the fact that the people who are writing these comments are "demons" — maybe not, but they are most likely battling some. No one happy or content in his or her life would take the time to write such horrifically cruel things to complete strangers. Not that that's an excuse by any means — and, you know what, sometimes there are just hateful, ignorant people in this world. Put them in front of a computer, give them an outlet to spew their hate, and suddenly they have a platform to say straight-up awful things that are louder than anything positive. It can start to seep into your own self-worth — another point that Pattinson makes.

"The more you hate it, the bigger it gets," he remarked, which should really be an important lesson to victims of cyber-bullying everywhere: It's entirely understandable to loathe your haters, but by doing so, you're just letting their hate take up valuable space in your mind. Instead, be the bigger person and do your best to let that crap go. The more attention you give the negative comments, the more power that they have. Wise words from Robert Pattinson, indeed.