Last week, Doja Cat found herself at the center of controversy surrounding her rumored romance with musician J. Cyrus.
Doja, real name Amala Ratna Zandile Dlamini, was first spotted with J. Cyrus last November, and the pair were pictured kissing on a yacht the following June.
Shortly after these photos surfaced online, several people came forward with allegations of grooming and sexual misconduct against Cyrus. Many of these users, who were fans of Doja’s, urged her to address the controversy surrounding Cyrus and her rumored relationship with him.
In response, Doja allegedly blocked several Twitter users who had publicly accused the music producer of misconduct. One person claimed, “doja cat blocked me earlier this month then dmed me this. she thinks i was trolling her predator boyfriend’s livestream and reported me to ‘cyber security.’”
Shortly afterwards, Doja wound up addressing the subject. She responded to an Instagram user who commented “leave dat white man” under one of her posts, writing, “he’s fucking me as i type this,” before making it clear in a separate comment that she didn’t care what people thought of her “personal life.”
“I WANT YALL TO READ THIS COMMENT AND TAKE IT AS A MESSAGE. I DONT GIVE A FUCK WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT MY PERSONAL LIFE I NEVER HAVE AND NEVER WILL GIVE A F*CK WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT ME OR MY PERSONAL LIFE GOODBYE AND GOOD RIDDANCE MISERABLE HOES НАНА,” she wrote.
Ever since, Doja has faced growing criticism for dismissing the serious allegations made against Cyrus by her fans.
And now, Doja is receiving fresh backlash after speaking out against her fans directly.
Taking to Threads over the weekend, Doja reportedly replied to someone who asked her to say she loves her fans: “i don’t though cuz i don’t even know yall.”
Another user then purportedly responded, “and we don’t know you. but we have supported you through thick and thin. mind you you’d be NOTHING without us. you’d be working at a grocery store making songs on fucking garage band miss high school drop out.”
Hitting back, Doja seemingly wrote, “nobody forced you idk why you’re talking to me like you’re my mother bitch you sound like a crazy person.”
Doja also reportedly slammed fans of hers who call themselves “kittens,” which has come to be recognized as the collective name of her fandom.
“my fans don't name themselves shit. if you call yourself a ‘kitten’ or fucking ‘kittenz’ that means you need to get off your phone and get a job and help your parents with the house,” she purportedly wrote.
Interestingly, several users noted that Doja once created a poll on Twitter asking her fans if they wanted to be called “kittens” or “cubs,” and has referred to them as “kittenz” ever since it received the most votes.
When someone pointed this out to Doja herself on Threads, she seemingly said that she’d come up with that fandom name when she was “an alcoholic teen.”
Doja then addressed a fan whose username contained her real name, @amalazandiledlamini. After the fan wrote, “Girl I help and a kitten it’s called multitasking 😻🫶🏼,” Doja replied, “you making my government name ur sn is creepy as fuck.”
And when someone with a username containing the term “kittenz” asked Doja what she’d prefer they change it to, the singer said, “just delete the entire account and rethink everything it’s never too late.”
Unsurprisingly, Doja’s alleged remarks sparked a wave of backlash online.
“WHY???? why tf would you say that? ‘i dont even know yall; i dont GET IT BRO - og fans have been supporting you from the beginning, getting you to where you are. what the fuck did the fans ever do to you?” one person wrote.
“girl what is up with you???? imagine doing this to someone who has supported you for years,” someone else said.
In fact, many fans wound up deleting their Twitter pages altogether in response to Doja’s apparent comments, while the artist herself seemingly deactivated her Threads account amid the backlash.
However, some people jumped to Doja’s defense, arguing that she was somewhat right to call out the “parasocial relationships” fans sometimes develop with their favorite artists.
“I kinda understand ? Cuz let’s be real, most of the love you receive (esp as an artist) is all fake. It’s conditional and fleeting. The fans love the idealized version of doja that they’ve created,” one person tweeted.
“The Doja discourse is a reminder that many of you struggle with the parasocial relationships you’ve built with artists and the delusional entitlement to ownership you feel over their personal and professional lives,” someone else added.
What’s more, this all comes just months after Doja publicly called her last two albums “cash-grabs” that fans “fell for” — another remark that sparked widespread outrage.
Fans were left feeling hurt after Doja randomly reduced her albums Hot Pink and Planet Her — both of which were huge commercial successes — to nothing but “cash-grabs.”
“planet her and hot pink were cash-grabs and yall fell for it. now i can go disappear somewhere and touch grass with my loved ones on an island while yall weep for mediocre pop,” she tweeted.
In response, one user wrote, “being unhappy with your music is normal but making fun of people for supporting you? weird.” Meanwhile, someone else echoed, “there's nothing i hate more than when celebrities make fun of their fans for supporting them. no matter how much i liked them previously, it instantly kills any love i had for them.”
