Everyone reacts differently to being cheated on. Some people channel their pain into game-changing, platinum-selling visual albums, while others prefer to stay in bed with a pint of ice cream in front of Eat Pray Love. But some people take a different, altogether more vengeful approach.
One such victim is Bella Thorne. She may be among the cast of an upcoming film about getting revenge on a sexist hacker who exposes people's secrets and illicit relationships, but she has no qualms about publicly getting her own back on her real-life boyfriend for (potentially) cheating.
This week, the actor publicly shamed her partner Mod Sun after she noticed notifications for the dating app Badoo on his phone. She took to Instagram Stories to document the occasion, using the super zoom filter and captioning the image: "When your boyfriend still has a dating app on his phone... [thinking face emoji]." The pair have been oversharing their relationship on social media since it began via social media last October, so perhaps this was always the way it was going to go...
Thorne's retribution isn't the only such case of public shaming via Instagram Stories in recent weeks, however. The Chainsmokers DJ Alex Pall was outed as a two-timing snake by his long-term (now ex) girlfriend Tori Woodward, who posted CCTV footage of him kissing another woman. Pall has since grovelled to the press about how Woodward "deserves a better guy than [him]," and how he's going to be a "better person" henceforth, so it's a tactic that clearly works – at least sometimes.
Screenshots from the instagram account of Tori Woodward, girlfriend of #Chainsmokers' Alex Pall
— KiSS 92.5 (@KiSS925) January 17, 2018
"‘I’m moving on with my life now with the satisfaction that I’m liberated from a horrible person and encourage anyone else in a similar position to know your worth and do the same" 👀 pic.twitter.com/366GStY28W
It's been a less successful technique for other scorned parties. Perhaps the most infamous case of celebrity social-media shaming, of course, was Rob Kardashian's vicious and very public feud with his ex and baby mama Blac Chyna last year. The reality star and sock mogul posted a stream of allegations and explicit photos of Chyna via Instagram, which, once people eventually came up for air after the scandal, was widely condemned as slut-shaming, cyber bullying and revenge porn. Chyna took out a restraining order against him and she's been in a savage legal battle with the Kardashians ever since. Poor baby Dream.
A stream of other celebrities and public figures have also aired their dirty laundry online, to the delight of busybodies and gossip sites around the world. Back in 2016, Iggy Azalea used Twitter to tell the world about her ex fiancé Nick Young. "I broke up with Nick because I found he had brought other women into our home while I was away and caught them on the security footage," she tweeted. "I feel like I don't even know who the hell it is I've been loving all this time."
Closer to home, the boxer Amir Khan publicly accused his wife Faryal Makhdoom of cheating on him with Anthony Joshua on Twitter after he received "fake" screenshots of a Snapchat conversation between the pair. He later admitted to being "embarrassed" by the whole feud, which may have made others think twice before seeking similar revenge.
It's not just those with millions of followers who employ this form of retaliation, though. Barely a week goes by without a tabloid or viral news sites delving into the bitter public feuds between ex partners on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, which often overstep the line between funny-and-forgiveable to straight-up revenge porn. One man recently posted a photo of his girlfriend in bed with her roommate. The comments below the post were polarised, to say the least.
The tactic can be utilised for good, however. Just last month, a woman started a hunt for a cheating man named Ben after she heard him bragging about his betrayal on a train. Emily Shepherd, 23, urged Ben's girlfriend to "dump his ass" in a tweet that became a viral sensation, garnering 27k retweets and 70k likes – although it's unclear if the adulterer was ever found.
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