Four celebrities haunted by old homophobic tweets

It helps to read social media posts a couple of times before sharing them with followers. This isn’t just key to avoiding typos, but also for scanning the message for homophobic innuendo. 

In 2018, four celebrities learned that a simple thing like a 140-character tweet can come back to bite you. 

Kevin Hart

Kevin Hart choked on his tweets of 2009 to 2011.

Just days after announcing he would be hosting the Oscars, he was confronted with the old posts.

Vice dug up the archives and shared the offensive material.

"Yo if my son comes home & try’s 2 play with my daughters doll house I’m going 2 break it over his head & say n my voice 'stop that’s gay'," tweeted Kevin.

In another post, he wrote: "Yo wtf is going on with @wayne215 and all this gay sh*t????? Say it ain’t so man!!! Is he coming out of the closet?"

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences demanded an apology from Kevin, but the comedian chose to do more than apologise - he stepped down as awards host.

"I do not want to be a distraction on a night that should be celebrated by so many amazing talented artists. I sincerely apologise to the LGBTQ community for my insensitive words from my past," he said.

Nadia Nakai

Rapper Nadia Nakai now appreciates that just because a tweet no longer appears at the top of a timeline, it doesn’t mean it’s forgotten. 

In September, she ate humble pie and apologised for 2010 tweets that offended the gay and lesbian community. 

In the tweet that started it all, she wrote: "This movie is about a male mermaid!! GAY! Why am I watching this?"

Boity Thulo 

The TV personality recently launched her rap career and, true to form, people on Twitter couldn’t resist the urge to unearth dirt from her past.

They found tweets from 2009 in which Thulo complained about "gay sh*t" on television shows. 

Boity regretted the comments, which she says she made when she was "naive, homophobic, young and didn’t know better".

Cassper Nyovest

"I am not homophobic. I have no problems with gay, bisexual people," was Cassper’s response to his fans when it emerged that he had allegedly refused to take a photo with a gay follower.

Matthew Whitehead told TshisaLIVE that after the incident he had come across Nyovest’s 2012 posts, which illustrated the star’s homophobic attitude.

Six years ago the rapper tweeted: "Wait.. Frank ocean shot a video with a male love interest?? I mean it’s one thing to be gay n***a but.. Wobona yanong."

Cassper posted a video explaining his actions.