Taio Cruz, the British singer best known for hits like “Break Your Heart” and “Dynamite” a decade ago, says he deleted his TikTok account due to the amount of vitriol he faced.
“It was like an ambush,” the 40-year-old told BBC News.
Cruz quit the social media platform last month after only a few days. In a since-deleted Instagram post, he wrote: “I’m DEFINITELY NOT going back to TikTok anytime soon. My body was shaking and I had suicidal thoughts … For my own mental health, I would rather be where I’m welcomed, for now, TikTok is not that place. Social media shouldn’t be like this. Sadly it it.”
Cruz told BBC News there’s a mob mentality in the comments section. "A lot of the time people will see something, then look at the comments to give them the answer of how they should feel about it, or how they should behave,” he said. “And I think that's really what happened with with my stuff. I was making fun videos, then someone decided to be toxic – and a bunch of other people decided, ‘Oh, I'm gonna join in on that.’
“Everyone’s screaming at you going, ‘He's a witch,’ and you're like, ‘I didn't do the black magic,’ and they're like, ‘Well, he's a witch anyway. So it was horrible. I'm not a fan.”
A spokesperson for TikTok told BBC News it has a zero tolerance policy about bullying and harassment. “We're huge fans of Taio and we were extremely disappointed that he experienced negativity from a limited number of users,” a spokesperson said.