By John Prager / 01.08.2017
Martin Shkreli is a creep — and not just because he raised the price of a life-saving medication astronomically then spent every waking hour snarkily defending that awful decision or any of the other bazillion terrible things he has done that have previously made headlines. Shkreli finally did something so horrible that even Twitter couldn’t tolerate it. Joining the ranks of white supremacist right-wing trolls Milo Yiannopolos and Charles Johnson , he now finds himself banned from Twitter after harassing a Teen Vogue writer.
Lauren Duca, who penned the legendary and scathing “Donald Trump is Gaslighting America” op-ed that came as close as is possible to literally causing conservative heads to explode, received a rather creepy message from Shkreli on Thursday and decided to share it with the world. It was regarding Trump’s inauguration, and Shkreli’s desire for her to be his “plus one.”
Obviously, this was intended to harass Duca rather than as an actual invitation; it is, of course, obvious that she would not wish to attend, so she offered the appropriate response: “I would rather eat my own organs.”
I would rather eat my own organs pic.twitter.com/IgeCRZqk8w
— Lauren Duca (@laurenduca) January 5, 2017
But Shkreli didn’t stop there. He responded by adding a line to his Twitter bio, reading that he has “a small crush on @laurenduca.” Then, he changed his profile photo to that of Duca and her husband, with his own face Photoshopped on top of Mr. Duca’s. Then, he changed his banner to a mega-creepy collage of photos of Duca and, just to top it all off, lyrics from All-4-One’s “I Swear.
Shkreli’s followers then bombarded Duca with more Photoshopped images of her together with him. Reached for comment shortly before the suspension, Shkreli told The Verge that he didn’t view his actions as “against Duca’s will” because she did not tell him to stop — or respond to his creepy messages at all.
Twitter banned Shkreli’s account Sunday afternoon, shortly after Duca tweeted screenshots to CEO Jack Dorsey.