Norman Kordei, a member of the girl band Fifth Harmony, has said she is taking a break from Twitter after receiving racist abuse.
Kordei's decision to temporarily leave the social networking site came a couple of days after she appeared to clarify rumours of a rift between herself and bandmate Camila Cabello. In a lengthy post, the singer said an issue had been "completely blown out of proportion" and condemned the "unjust hate" she had received on Twitter.
Two days later, the 20-year-old followed by posting an open letter to her 1.7million followers saying she was staying off Twitter for the time being after receiving “horrific” racially-abusive tweets and pictures.
“I’ve never been one to deny anyone of their opinions but over the course of this last week and especially over the last 28 hours I’ve not just been cyber bullied, I’ve been racially cuber bullied with tweets and pictures so horrific and racially charged that I can’t subject myself any longer to the hate,” she wrote.
Kordei, who has a strong social media following and regularly updates her fans both on Twitter and Instagram, also thanked Twitter for “jumping into action when they were alerted to the situation”.
Messages of support soon poured in from fans and followers including fellow singer Zendaya.
Band members Ally Brooke Hernandez, Lauren Jauregui, Dinah Jane and Cabello have all since posted messages denouncing racism and supporting Kordei.
The incident comes just a few weeks after another high-profile black female drew attention to the racism she was receiving on the social networking site.
Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones re-tweeted a number of racist messages she received and described her ordeal as “personal hell”. After calling on Twitter to do more to protect its users from such abuse, she received a direct tweet from the company’s CEO Jack Dorsey inviting her to contact him personally.
Kordei makes up one fifth of the band Fifth harmony who were put together by Simon Cowell on the US version of the X Factor in 2012. Over the past two years their songs “Worth It” and “Work From Home” entered the UK top 10.
A representative for Kordei did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
