Australian comedian and presenter Meshel Laurie is claiming she was hacked by a racist who left a Facebook comment in her name about blackface.
The bizarre Facebook drama began last night when a comment supposedly made by Laurie surfaced online, in response to a tweet made by fellow comedian Nina Oyama.
Oyama’s tweet read “so it looks like Meshel Laurie officially came out of the Karen Closet today,” sharing a post by another woman, Catherine Bouris who had screen-shot a comment made by Laurie where she says that blackface has no cultural relevance in Australia.
The complicated web of posts essentially boiled down to a single Facebook comment made by Laurie, that reads in part “blackface in American culture has a different context that reaches far further back than it does in Australia.”
But rather than issue an apology and admit to her racist comments, like fellow comedian Josh Thomas did overnight, Laurie this morning posted a lengthy passage to Facebook where she claims she was hacked.
“I didn’t write this comment. I don’t understand what’s happened, but I didn’t write it. I couldn’t see it on my Facebook page,” Laurie wrote.
“I refreshed and refreshed and couldn’t see it. I changed my password and was locked out altogether until this morning. I don’t know. It’s bizarre because it’s honestly not even a crazy enough comment to seem ‘hacked.’
“It just reads like an obnoxious basic-white-woman overstepping, so I get that it’s believable, but I didn’t write it.
We’re still investigating with Facebook, but so far we’ve figured out it was posted at 1am on Saturday morning, when I was very much asleep. I don’t take sleeping pills, so I’m not pulling a Stilnox stunt, and I wasn’t drunk. I don’t think I’m a sleep-commenter either.”
Laurie then went on to apologise to the woman involved in the post, Alana Dowdell who Laurie— or a hacker— tagged in the comment, and people of colour.
“I didn’t write the comment but I’m not going to say any more about it, beg to be believed or fight with anyone about it because there’s no point. I’m not worth your time. There’s so much more important stuff to do,” she wrote.
“I’m embarrassed to my core but still exhilarated by this moment of international protest. I am not worth your time.”
