Demi Lovato’s hot takes on a couple of high-profile diva feuds get them into hot water.
Justin Bieber complains about his fans, only to get roasted by an ex. And John Mayer learns
what buttons do. The next chapter for each of them? Quitting and un-quitting social media.
Chrissy Teigen was kind of an unofficial Queen of Twitter thanks to her witty and
brutal comebacks and total honesty. So it came as a bit of a shock when she told her more than
13 million Twitter followers in 2021 that she was backing away from her account. In a series
of tweets on March 24, she wrote that she was "deeply bruised" from her time online, adding,
"I have made my mistakes, throughout the years and in front of hundreds of thousands,
and been held accountable for them. I've learned an incredible
amount here. [...] But one thing I haven't learned is how to block out the negativity."
But it didn't take long for Teigen to return, as on April 16 of the same year, she tweeted,
"turns out it feels TERRIBLE to silence yourself and also no longer enjoy belly
chuckles randomly throughout the day and also lose like 2000 friends at once lol."
Soon afterwards, Teigen faced accusations that she'd bullied model Courtney Stodden
and others online, which she responded to with an apology on June 14.
"The hardest part for me was realizing that, my goodness,
like, this really had an effect on people."
Ed Sheeran's "Divide Tour," which lasted from March 2017 to August 2019,
was record-breaking. In fact, it became the highest-grossing tour of all time,
with total sales of over $730 million, beating out the mark previously set by U2.
Then in December 2019, Sheeran told his Instagram followers that he was
stepping away from social media after his tour was officially over. As he put it,
"Hello all. Gonna go on another break again. The Divide era and tour changed my life in
so many ways, but now it's all over it's time to go out and see some more of the
world. [...] I'll be off all social media until it's time to come back."
Sheeran eventually made his return to Instagram on September 1, 2020, as he announced the birth
of his new daughter. This wasn't the first time that the singer had taken a break from social
media. He'd also logged off back in 2015 after the end of his "x Tour," as he shared at the time,
"Hello all. I'm taking a break from my phone, emails and all social media for
a while. [...] I find myself seeing the world through a screen and not my eyes."
That break ended in December 2016 when he teased fans with new music.
Kendall Jenner stunned her followers when she deleted her Instagram account in November 2016.
As one of the most followed celebs on the planet, the news prompted shocked headlines,
but Jenner felt that she needed to go offline for the sake of
her health. As she explained during an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show,
"I felt like I just wanted a little bit of a break. [...] I would wake up in the morning and
I would look at it first thing. I would go to bed and it was the last thing I would look at.
I felt a little too dependent on it so I kind of wanted to take a minute. It's a detox."
But the break didn't last very long, as Jenner returned to Instagram only
a week later to post photos of her friends as well as a shot of herself at a concert.
This wasn't the only time that she's talked about her mental health and experiences with
anxiety. As she explained in a video for the Vogue series "Open Minded":
"I find that the more I'm looking at a screen the more detached I feel with my own body or
to like what's happening right in front of me. My relationship with social media
is, you know, is a bit addictive right now, which I don't like and I'm not proud to say that,
but I also feel like that's something that probably most of us can relate to."
"There really is, like, no escaping it."
On June 20, 2016, Demi Lovato announced that they were leaving Twitter and Instagram for good,
but without much of an explanation. This may have had something to do with throwing shade at
Mariah Carey. A few days earlier, Lovato defended Ariana Grande when an Instagram account claimed
that the "Thank U, Next" singer was a knockoff version of Carey, to which Lovato commented,
"You got it the wrong way around honey."
Lovato also defended Jennifer Lopez, who has had an ongoing feud with Carey, by adding,
"Mariah is a legend and is so talented but consistently disses people."
Then on June 20, Lovato tweeted,
"Damn I gotta quit sayin s---. Bye Twitter."
Afterwards, Lovato sent out a series of tweets
stating that fans could add their Snapchat because, as they put it,
"I don't have to see what some of y'all say. [...] But why do
people actually give a f--- what I say??"
Lovato wasn't gone for long, though. In fact, it was less than a day later that they tweeted,
"F--- this ... I'm back b----es. And I'm coming back more honest than ever."
"Hurricane Demi is a-coming."
Miley Cyrus is known for reinventing herself ever since leaving her Disney days behind her.
In July 2018, she resorted to extreme measures to let her fans know that there was a whole new Miley
in the making after she deleted her Instagram account and every single photo that was on it.
Fans initially believed that the singer did this because she and her then-fiance
Liam Hemsworth had split up, but Hemsworth still had photos of Cyrus on his Instagram.
As a source clarified to Entertainment Tonight,
"Miley says she simply likes to change things up!
She is taking a long needed break and she feels it's healthy."
"I thought it was pretty cool."
Cyrus ultimately returned to Instagram on November 30, 2018, as she released her
new song "Nothing Breaks Like a Heart" and its accompanying music video. The very next month,
Cyrus and Hemsworth tied the knot, but then they separated after just eight months of marriage.
When Pete Davidson returned to Instagram in February 2022, it made headlines. Not only was
he dating Kim Kardashian, but furthermore her ex Kanye West was bashing him on social media.
This left observers to wonder if Davidson was about to come after the rapper as well.
Upon Davidson's return, he followed his girlfriend, as well as actor Sebastian Stan.
His first post was a Story featuring a clip from the movie The King of Comedy
in which Robert De Niro's comedian character Rupert Pupkin opines:
"Better to be a king for a night than schmuck for a lifetime."
Fans believed that this was Davidson's way of finally getting back at West.
In less inflammatory news, Davidson also posted on his grid for the first time,
as he shared a clip of his film The Home. But just a week after logging back on to Instagram,
he deleted his account once again. He'd previously deleted it and logged back on
several times. As he declared during one Instagram Story in July 2018,
"The internet is an evil place and it doesn't make me feel good."
For his part, West,
who has referred to Davidson as "Skete," claimed in a since-deleted Instagram post,
"Ran Skete off the gram."
When Instagram announced that it had "briefly disabled" Rihanna's account in 2014,
the singer and Fenty Beauty owner didn't immediately jump back on the platform.
After she posted a photo clapping back at the app, she didn't add any more posts for quite some time.
As it turned out, the disabling was accidental on Instagram's end, with the company claiming,
"This account was mistakenly caught in one of our automated
systems and very briefly disabled. We apologize for any inconvenience."
However, it's worth noting that the account became disabled after Rihanna posted nude photos of
herself for a French magazine and that Instagram deleted those racy pics. The singer then poked
fun at the app by posting a photo of herself in a more old-fashioned outfit along with the caption,
"Rih's next magazine cover if it was up to Instagram."
Rihanna ultimately stepped away from the platform for six months, and she and the
company appeared to have made amends when she returned. She posted a selfie with the caption,
"Hellurrr #badgalback."
She also shared a drawing of a stick-figured version of herself
holding hands with a cartoon version of Instagram.
Actor-comedian Leslie Jones quit Twitter in 2016 after an outpouring of racist tweets aimed
at her appearance. Those negative comments stemmed from her 2016 film Ghostbusters,
a female-led reboot of the 1984 original of the same name. Fans of the first movie bombarded the
entire main cast with hate, but Jones arguably got it the worst. She ultimately tweeted in response,
"I leave Twitter tonight with tears and a very sad heart. All this cause I did a movie. You can
hate the movie but the s--- I got today...wrong. [...] I feel like I'm in a personal hell. I didn't
do anything to deserve this. It's just too much. It shouldn't be like this. So hurt right now."
But Jones didn't let those Internet trolls get to her for too long,
as she returned to Twitter a mere two days later and was back to her comedic self, as she declared,
"Welp...a b---- thought she could stay away. But who else is gonna live tweet Game of Thrones!!"
In this case, we can probably forgive a little social media addiction if it
means resiliently standing up for yourself.
Justin Bieber had enough of social media when his fans appeared to be jealous of the photos
he posted on Instagram with his then-girlfriend Sofia Richie. The two reportedly had a brief
romance that began in August 2016, but it lasted long enough to set off a firestorm
with Beliebers who weren't fans of his new flame. One photo of the couple featured the caption:
"I'm gonna make my Instagram private if you guys don't stop the hate this is getting out of hand,
if you guys are really fans you wouldn't be so mean to people that I like."
Before Bieber ultimately deactivated his account on August 16,
his ex Selena Gomez chimed in by commenting
"If you can't handle the hate then stop posting pictures of your girlfriend lol – it should be
special between you two only. Don't be mad at your fans. They love you."
Bieber then responded in turn,
"It's funny to see people that used me for attention and still
try to point the finger this way. Sad. All love."
Which prompted Gomez to add,
"Funny how the ones that cheated multiple times, are pointing the finger at the ones
that were forgiving and supportive, no wonder fans are mad. Sad. All love."
Bieber ended up reactivating his account two weeks later, although he told his fans on Twitter,
"Still no Instagram it was an accident."
He was officially back on Instagram on February 3, 2017, in the form of a T-mobile ad.
In April 2010, pop-rock-blues musician John Mayer hinted at
getting off social media when he reportedly said,
"Every night I think about cancelling my Twitter account because I think it's pretty much done.
I just think Twitter as a form of communication, I think it's over, to be honest with you."
In September of that year, Mayer indeed deleted
his Twitter and left behind millions of followers with a final tweet that read,
"What does this button do?"
Then in 2011, while speaking at the Berklee College of Music, Mayer further explained,
"I realized about a year ago that I couldn’t have a complete thought anymore, and I was a
tweetaholic. I had four million Twitter followers, and I was always writing on it. And I stopped
using Twitter as an outlet and I started using Twitter as the instrument to riff on,
and it started to make my mind smaller and smaller and smaller. And I couldn't write a song."
Mayer eventually returned to the platform in January 2014 and then tweeted,
"I'm back. What'd I miss?"
"So I'm a recovered ego addict."
Mayer also jokingly shared a YouTube link to Rebecca Black's viral hit "Friday" and declared,
"Been waiting SO long to share this with you. It's so bad it's good. Take a look."
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