Doja Cat said she’s feeling a lot freer these days since losing hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers in late July.
Not only has the Grammy winner been in the headlines for new music but for her recent disputes with fans, which many found offensive, resulting in nearly 200,000 of her Instagram followers hitting the unfollow button on the social media platform. On Wednesday, she addressed the incident via an Instagram Story.
“Seeing all these people unfollow me feels like I’ve defeated a large beast that’s been holding me down so long and it feels like I can reconnect with people who really matter and love me for who I am and not who I was,” she said.
As Blavity reported, the commotion with the “Attention” singer’s fans started when they criticized the 27-year-old after she spent time with her rumored boyfriend, J. Cyrus, a TikTok star who allegedly “emotionally abused” his supporters, and she clapped back.
“I DON’T GIVE A F**K WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT MY PERSONAL LIFE I NEVER HAVE AND NEVER WILL GIVE A F**K WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT ME OR MY PERSONAL LIFE,” she wrote on Threads. “GOODBYE AND GOOD RIDDANCE MISERABLE HOES HAHA!”
She then engaged with followers, which sparked a debate about the name of her fans, “Kittenz,” that she originally came up with. She now dislikes the name she chose after she said her “fans don’t name themselves s**t” in a thread.
“If you call yourself a ‘kitten’ or f**king ‘kittenz’ that means you need to get off your phone and get a job and help your parents with the house,” she said.
When a fan responded asking what they should rename her Threads handle, Doja Cat told them to “delete the entire account and rethink everything it’s never too late.” She even called one fan “creepy as f**k” for naming her account after the artist’s birth name, Amala Ratna Zandile Dlamini.
Doja being mean to her fans for bc of the word kitten like her name isn’t doja CAT and she wasn’t dressed as a cat and meowed her way through an entire interview a few months ago oh she has lost her mind. Mind you, she’s being a bitch to the people that practically pay her bills https://t.co/au6OWZ5yZ2
— Y⁷(ꪜ)📦 (@jiminfacekoo) July 23, 2023
During a recent interview with Harper’s Bazaar, she shared that she doesn’t believe she’s an icon despite some people giving her the title.
“I think I deserve love and respect from the people that I love and respect back — and I guess respect means different things to some people,” she told the outlet. “I put myself out there on social media and TV. I shoot my image out onto these screens. But I don’t really put myself out there in real life. I don’t go to clubs. I stick to creating.”