“I’m so ashamed that I was a fan of you,” a now-deleted letter to Tom Hiddleston begins on Twitter. If you’re wondering why this fan was so angry that they chose to write a letter to Hiddleston tagging him on Twitter and then shaming him for disappointing them, let me enlighten you. This fan was angry because Hiddleston had the nerve to propose to his girlfriend Zawe Ashton just months after they revealed their relationship at the 2021 Tony Awards. The long letter, deleted after backlash, was filled with insults aimed at both Hiddleston and Ashton, and ends with the poster saying, “And most importantly you lied to your fans, you pretended you’re single when you actually dated the ugly woman. As an actor you don’t have [an] outstanding role anymore, as a man you are fainthearted. Since you will marry the woman I hope you become [a] flop like her.”
Tom Hiddleston may be one of Marvel’s biggest stars and a household name in fandom for his role as anti-hero Loki, but Ashton is no slouch either. She has a career in television and film dating back to the nineties. While she’s only just getting her start in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as the villain in the upcoming film Marvels, calling her a “flop” is a stretch. It’s a stretch that only exists because of jealousy. These fans, who in some cases have spent an entire decade being Tom Hiddleston fans in the wake of the first Thor film, are jealous because Ashton is getting something they can’t have and that they feel they deserve: Hiddleston’s love and affection.
Sure, if you press these “fans” on the reasons behind their bad behavior, few will say outright that jealousy fuels them. They won’t say that they believed they really had a shot with the celebrity or that they’re mad that the opportunity is no longer open to them. Instead, they claim that the potential partner isn’t good for the celebrity, that they’re using the celebrity, or that they’re ugly. They’re not willing to say that they think the celebrity should be with them or, in the case of a partner that’s a woman of color, a white woman they can layer themselves and their desires onto almost like a reader insert.
Pau, a devoted Ashton fan, has been running the @ZaweDaily account on Twitter for the past three years. She’s also spent several months using her stan account to document the way that aggressive Tom Hiddleston fans have become anti fans of Ashton, using Instagram and Twitter to harass her. While Pau would love to just focus on the highs of Ashton’s career, she feels that it's important to speak out and share what's going on. “Usually the malicious comments come from women who hate any woman who is close to Tom and has this weird idea that he is their internet boyfriend,” Pau tells Teen Vogue, “but with Zawe you add the extremely racist comments, the most 'soft’ and perhaps the most passive aggressive comments are how Zawe is not Tom's ‘style.’ Of course you don't have to like everyone, but you should at least have respect for her as a person, because you don't really know her, you don't really know anything about her and Tom, and you just hate her because she is the person your favorite loves.”
For years, fans have lashed out at the women and girls who wind up dating (or are rumored to date) their celebrity favorite. Just last year, Outer Banks star Rudy Pankow had to defend his girlfriend, Elaine Siemek, from harassment from his own fans. Even when it comes to rumors – like in the 2020 case of singer Suran having to explain herself to fans of BTS’ Suga over a social media post – the potential for a relationship with a celebrity opens plenty of women up to unbelievable amounts of harassment. Part of why fans harass celebrity partners? Well, you have only to look at the parasocial relationship and how it can be taken to aggressive extremes in the attempt to protect the relationship fans have with their beloved celebrity object of desire. Fans attach themselves to this relationship that develops between them and the celebrity they really love. As a result, when a celebrity gets into a relationship or is linked in a romance – especially with someone that fans think doesn’t deserve or isn’t worthy of them – like a woman of color or a non-celebrity – the person dealing with the parasocial relationship views it as a betrayal of the relationship, similar to cheating on their fans.
The harassment takes on another level when women of color – usually Black women – are the ones in relationship with a white fandom favorite. When it comes to Black women, fandom often tells us that the object of desire wouldn’t want us. So when the celebrity object or fictional object turns around and actually ends up with a Black woman, fandom always reacts poorly and aggressively to the reality that well… we are wanted. One of the best examples of this phenomena lies in the way that FKA Twigs was subject to horrific harassment during her time dating The Batman star Robert Pattinson. FKA Twigs directly addressed the idea that Pattinson’s fans thought she was “unworthy” of him in her interview with Louis Theroux.
“Yeah, of course it was that because he was the white Prince Charming, and I think they considered that he should definitely be with somebody white and blonde and not me,” she told Theroux back in 2021. “Whatever I did at that time, people would find pictures of monkeys and have me doing the same thing as the monkeys. I say, if I was wearing a red dress, I'd have a monkey and a red dress, or if I was on a bike, they'd find a monkey on a bike.”
Another is the misogynoir that cropped up around Meghan Markle once she began to date Prince Harry. Of course, many of the people responsible for the years of public misogynoir and harassment that has actually put Meghan’s life and well-being at risk are open white supremacists. They say they’re doing all of this because Markle’s inclusion into the notoriously beige royal family of England taints the lineage of noble blood. However, there’s also the fandom component. There is a fandom built around the British royal family and they do (anti) fannish things – like create and support YouTube essay videos “proving” that Meghan somehow isn’t the mother of her two children.
Harry’s other girlfriends – like Chelsy Davy – undoubtedly faced intense media speculation and fandom backlash – but nothing compares to the years of aggressive misogynoir that Meghan has received for her relationship with Harry.
“With Prince Harry, the attachment for many royal watchers began at birth, when Prince Charles and Princess Diana introduced him to the world on the hospital steps of the Lindo Wing, and was cemented when he walked behind his mother’s casket,” freelance writer and royals expert R.S. Locke tells Teen Vogue. “A generation of surrogate parents was created who were committed to taking care of Diana’s boys in her absence. Add to that, the women who grew up fantasizing about marrying the bad boy prince. Together, you end up with this toxic combination of meddling mamas, who believe no one is good enough for their son, and jilted would-be lovers, who are angry at Meghan for ruining their fairytale. The common link is that neither group had a biracial American as the heroine of their story.”
Black women in the media are also punished when their characters are in relationships with white characters that fandom is interested in. Ongoing harassment directed at Candice Patton over the years since The Flash began in 2014 has been well-documented by the fandom and addressed by Patton herself. Much of it is because of the fictional relationship her character Iris has with the titular character. A significant portion of Anna Diop’s harassment and the nasty tone around her on social media is because her character on Titans, Starfire, is in an on and off relationship with Dick Grayson. Freema Agyeman, from Doctor Who, was harassed by racist fans angry about her being a potential love interest for the titular Doctor. Chances are, if there’s a Black woman whose character was in a relationship with a white character in a popular pop culture product or linked with an actor that fandom loved, chances are that they’ve been harassed over relationships they aren’t even actually in.
This is truly normal in online fandoms where a Black woman celebrity can be subject to horrific harassment all for the “crime” of dating another celebrity that fans thirst over. And no one aside from their fans – usually other Black women – tend to do anything about it or speak in their defense. Here’s some advice for fandom: leave Black women alone. Even when they’re public figures, their relationships are none of our business. There’s no reason why Black women like Zawe Ashton should be harassed, slandered, and misrepresented by fandom just for getting into a relationship. It’s not a betrayal for a celebrity to end up with someone that isn’t you… especially if that someone happens to be a Black woman.
Stitch will continue discussing the many layers of fandom in Fan Service, published every other week on Teen Vogue. You can follow their work on Stitch's Media Mix and on Twitter.
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