Dan Aykroyd slams Leslie Jones' Twitter attackers
After "Ghostbusters" star Leslie Jones opened up about being subjected to heinous, racist tirades by Twitter trolls on Monday, the actress' co-star and original Ghostbuster himself, Dan Aykroyd, tore into her haters, calling them losers and white supremacists.
"These people, first of all, they're insignificant gnats," the 64-year-old actor and Saturday Night Live alum told ET Canada on Tuesday. "They have no lives of their own, they can barely pay for the wi-fi they're using, probably no jobs. I would say you're looking at obese, white men between 50 and 60, who are active Klan members or members of the Aryan Nation, and there are millions of them."
"And I'm afraid to say that that contingency will be voting for the Republican ticket," Aykroyd added, speculating that many of the hateful commenters are also Donald Trump supporters.
As for Jones, Aykroyd had nothing but praise, calling the 48-year-old SNL cast member a "great writer and a great comedian."
"[She] comes from a real urban background where she had a lot of hardship and she's channeling that into a great achievement and a great career," Akroyd shared.
The attacks against Jones have spurred many of the star's friends, fans and fellow performers to come to her defense and show their support, tweeting kind words with the hashtag ##LoveForLeslieJ.
After many users and celebs called on Twitter to take action against those harassing Jones with racist, malicious or even threatening messages, a spokesperson for the social media platform released a statement to ET apologizing for their delayed reaction and promising to increase enforcement against this type of behavior.
"This type of abusive behavior is not permitted on Twitter, and we've taken action on many of the accounts reported to us by both Leslie and others," the statement read. "We rely on people to report this type of behavior to us but we are continuing to invest heavily in improving our tools and enforcement systems to prevent this kind of abuse. We realize we still have a lot of work in front of us before Twitter is where it should be on how we handle these issues."