Rob Kim/Getty ImagesIt's a bad day to be EL James, but it's an even worse day to be EL James' publicist.
For an unknown reason, the Fifty Shades of Grey author's team thought it would be a great idea for James to conduct a Twitter Q&A to celebrate the recent release of Grey, which tells the story from Christian's side. We have to imagine that whoever suggested the Q&A had never been on Twitter before, because holy cow did it backfire.
The afternoon turned into a straight-up spectacle of circus proportions, with Twitter users firing anti-Fifty Shades of Grey zingers left and right. It's almost enough to make a person feel bad for James and her team, but then we remembered that literally anyone on Earth should have known that an open forum for one of the most divisive books in recent history, on one of the most open social media platforms, would only result in disaster.
As a refresher, the chief concerning surrounding the Fifty Shades books is its portrayal of domestic abuse. Or, more specifically, what readers to be domestic abuse sugarcoated as a romantic relationship. A lot of people are really bothered by the way Christian treats Ana (in and out of the bedroom) and the way it's glorified to be desirable—and it just so happens that a Twitter Q&A is the perfect outlet to voice those concerns.
To make matters worse, it seems that either James herself or a member of her team strategically blocked tweeters who took aim at the domestic abuse controversy, which only further aggravated the situation. The resulting display is equal parts amusing, dramatic and disturbing, so we decided to give you a look at the tweets that came in all across the board.
For starters, some people decided to, er, poke fun at James' notoriously, er, weak writing abilities. Which, frankly, were some of the nicer tweets (ouch!).
Some people decided to err on the side of wacky heckling:
But the majority simply readied, aimed and fired right at the heart of Fifty Shades of Grey controversy: