Leslie Jones received death threats over her female-led 'Ghostbusters' movie.
Leslie Jones received death threats over Ghostbusters reboot
The 56-year-old actress - who starred in Kevin Feig's movie alongside Kate McKinnon, Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy - has blasted Jason Reitman's response to the 2016 film when he released 'Ghostbusters: Afterlife' in 2021, as well as the public fallout from it.
In her new memoir 'Leslie F****** Jones', she wrote: "Why are people being so evil to each other? How can you sit and type ‘I want to kill you.’ Who does that?”
She continued: "Sad keyboard warriors living in their mother’s basements hated the fact that this hallowed work of perfect art now featured — gasp! horror! — women in the lead roles.
“Worst of all, of course, was that one of the lead characters was a Black woman. For some men, this was the final straw.”
When it came to making his movie, Jason - whose father Ivan helmed the original 'Ghostbusters' films in the 1980s - insisted he was "trying to go back to the original technique and hand the movie back to the fans".
The 'Juno' director added at the time: "I’m not making the 'Juno' of 'Ghostbusters' movies.
“This is gonna be a love letter to 'Ghostbusters'... I want to make a movie for my fellow 'Ghostbusters' fans.”
He later claimed on Twitter that his comments "came out wrong" and he hailed the all-female version as "amazing", but Leslie insisted "the damage was done".
In her memoir, she insisted that his original comments were "a pretty clear shout-out" to the people who were attacking her.
She wrote: "Bringing up the idea of giving the movie ‘back to the fans’ was a pretty clear shout-out to all those losers who went after us for making an all-female [movie]."
Tagged in Kristen Wiig Melissa McCarthy Kate McKinnon