Ayo Edebiri woke up one morning to find herself at the center of an internet firestorm—one she never signed up for. The Emmy-winning actress and The Bear star became the latest target of Elon Musk’s ever-growing arsenal of reckless tweets, all because of a fake rumor about a Pirates of the Caribbean reboot.
It started when Musk, self-proclaimed free speech warrior turned Trump advisor, amplified a false claim that Edebiri was set to replace Johnny Depp in a new Pirates film. The source? A random, Musk-worshipping account on X (formerly Twitter) that decided to toss her name into the Hollywood rumor mill. Musk, in his usual shoot-first, fact-check-later approach, quote-tweeted the nonsense with a simple but damning “Disney sucks.” And just like that, the mob was unleashed.
Edebiri, a queer Black actress with an ever-growing fanbase, soon found herself drowning in a sea of racial slurs, death threats, and sheer online vitriol—all for a role she wasn’t even considering. Taking to Instagram, she clapped back at the chaos, saying the hate campaign was “for sure a top three” moment in her personal history of receiving violent threats.
“So not only is he double-sieg-heiling fascist, he’s an idiot,” she wrote, referencing Musk’s recent Nazi-adjacent antics at a Trump event.
Musk, of course, played his usual card—denial and deflection. He dismissed the criticism, as he has with past allegations of hate speech running rampant on his platform. But here’s the kicker: his X empire has become a breeding ground for this kind of unchecked bigotry, especially against women, people of color, and the LGBTQ+ community.
Edebiri, meanwhile, is too busy actually working to care about Musk’s man-child tantrums. With projects lined up, including a Luca Guadagnino film and an A24 Barney movie (yes, that Barney), she’s got bigger things to focus on than imaginary pirate ships. And let’s be real—if she were starring in Pirates 6, she’d do it better than Musk ever could.