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Online harassment forces Robin Williams’s daughter offline

This is just downright cruel.

 

Michelle Jaworski

IRL

Posted on Aug 13, 2014   Updated on May 30, 2021, 6:55 pm CDT

Zelda Williams is taking a break from social media after trolls sent her gruesome Photoshopped images of her father, Robin Williams, following his death on Monday.

She and the rest of her family have largely stayed quiet since news of his death came to light. She expressed gratitude after Reddit helped raise over $9,000 for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and posted a memorial note on Instagram.

With the mostly positive displays of love and support, she thanked people sending support and while joked at the expense of the people who were being negative.

“To those he touched who are sending kind words, know that one of his favorite things in the world was to make you all laugh,” she wrote on Tumblr. “As for those who are sending negativity, know that some small, giggling part of him is sending a flock of pigeons to your house to poop on your car. Right after youve had it washed. After all, he loved to laugh too.”

But now she’s stepping away from social media after being harassed by Twitter trolls, who reportedly sent her fake autopsy photos. At the time, she asked her followers to report the users who sent her the photos, but she later deleted it; the accounts she named have since been suspended.

Soon after, she deleted her social media apps from her phone and announced that she planned to take a break.

I’m sorry. I should’ve risen above. Deleting this from my devices for a good long time, maybe forever. Time will tell. Goodbye.

— Zelda Williams (@zeldawilliams) August 13, 2014

She’s also taking a long break from Instagram, where she struck back against the people who commented that she didn’t have enough photos of Robin Williams on her account in a lengthy post.

“Mining our accounts for photos of dad, or judging me on the number of them is cruel and unnecessary,” she wrote. “There are a couple throughout, but the real private moments I shared with him were precious, quiet, and believe it or not, not full of photos or ‘selfies.’ I shared him with a world where everyone was taking their photo with him, but I was lucky enough to spend time with him without cameras too.”

H/T Business Insider | Photo via officialnintendomag/YouTube

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*First Published: Aug 13, 2014, 11:46 am CDT