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Leslie Jones on Milo: Stop feeding the trolls

Jayme Deerwester
USA TODAY

The media and public may have been expecting an emotional reaction — or perhaps, schadenfreude —  from Leslie Jones after Milo Yiannopoulos'  book Dangerous was canceled. It happened Monday after comments he made in a video that appeared to condone sex between men and boys came to light.

Leslie Jones says the media and public are giving MIlo Yiannopoulos "too much energy."

But they didn't quite get that from her.

Without naming him Monday night, the Saturday Night Live actress tweeted "You guys are giving him to (sic) much energy. I was done the day I blocked him & got his (expletive) banned. Been done and moved on. He has no space here!"

The Saturday Night Live star is referring to a string of events over the summer that began with her going public with some of the racist invective aimed at her on Twitter due to her starring role in the all-female Ghostbusters reboot.

The whole Leslie Jones Twitter feud, explained

Yiannopoulos, The former Breitbart editor, contrarian, free-speech advocate and professional provocateur tweeted from his now-deleted account, writing, “If at first you don’t succeed (because your work is terrible), play the victim. EVERYONE GETS HATE MAIL."

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Then he offered up his own theory about the genesis of the Jones firestorm: "Ghostbusters is doing so badly they’ve deployed @Lesdoggg to play the victim on Twitter. Very sad!” Yiannopoulos posted, followed by tweets that read: “Barely literate. America needs better schools!” and “rejected by yet another black dude.”

Jones reported him to Twitter, which led to his account being suspended, and eventually, banned.

Fast forward six months.

Turns out Jones may not have been totally over the Yiannopoulos feud by July, as she claimed. In January, she tweeted in protest at Simon & Schuster after the publishing house's conservative imprint Threshold signed him to a book deal.

She called the publisher out over a statement distancing themselves from the opinions expressed by their authors, noting, "You still help them spread their hate to even more people."

And Yiannopoulos, who describes himself as a "virtuous troll," was still defending his comments about her as recently as Friday, when he discussed the feud with Bill Maher, the host of HBO's Real Time.

"I wrote a bad review of a movie," Yiannopoulos said. "Am I not entitled to do that? I said she looked like a dude. She does. I said that she was barely literate, which she is. And I simply don't accept that an A-list Hollywood celebrity is sitting at home crying over mean words on the internet."

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Odds are, the loss of Yiannopoulos' book deal and the revocation of his invitation to speak this year's CPAC convention may not be the last we hear from either.

Yiannopoulos, who resigned Tuesday from Breitbart, announced during a news conference that he is launching a new media venture in the coming weeks and indicated that other publishers have expressed interest in releasing Dangerous.

But he was also there to drive home a point made in a Facebook statement Monday.

"I do not support child abuse," he said during his remarks. "It's a disgusting crime of which I have personally been a victim." (The openly gay writer said he'd been inappropriately touched by two men, one of whom was a priest, when he was 16.)

Yiannopoulos said he would "not apologize for dealing with my life experiences in the way which I choose to, which is through humor and provocation." But he added he was sorry if his words hurt other abuse victims.

"I will never stop making jokes about taboo subjects," he warned.

Contributing: William Cummings