Author Who Went Viral Sues Book Publisher for $13 Million

[BUtterfield 8 41,816]

Before May 10, Natasha Tynes, a Jordanian American writer, a mother of three, the sole breadwinner of her family of five, and a communications officer for World Bank Group, was looking forward to the June release of her new book, They Called Me Wyatt. She’d worked on it for four years.

Then, on May 10, Tynes — a self-described “social media maven” — tweeted a photo of a black DC Metro employee eating on a train, calling her out for breaking the transit authority’s rules.

The tweet went viral, inviting fierce backlash from people accusing Tynes of being “anti-black,” “entitled,” and a “terrible person.”

The subsequent uproar over her tweet cost Tynes her original book deal and pushed her to the “brink of suicide,” according to a new lawsuit Tynes filed against Rare Bird Books, the publisher for her book about the murder of a Jordanian student in Maryland.

Tynes is suing Rare Bird Books for $13 million, alleging, among other things, that the California-based company breached its contract and defamed her with false public statements that caused her “extreme emotional distress.”

According to the lawsuit, filed in the Superior Court of California, Tynes was hospitalized with chest pains and anxiety and was forced to temporarily leave the US after her family was subjected to death threats and racial slurs in the tweet’s aftermath.

The lawsuit said that the issue of race did not occur to Tynes, an immigrant woman of color with a “prominent accent,” when she sent her tweet.

The union for Metro workers at the time said riders like Tynes are often unaware that bus operators have an average of 20 minutes to eat and get to their next access point to ensure buses and trains run on time. The unidentified Metro worker did not face any disciplinary action for eating on the train, but was “hurt and embarrassed” for being blasted on social media, according to her union representative.

Tynes said her schedule, as a novelist and mother of three young children with a day job, meant that she often did not get a chance to eat before work and commuted on an empty stomach for fear of being ticketed by a Metro employee for eating on the train, according to the lawsuit.

But in the midst of the Twitter outrage, Rare Bird Books issued a statement announcing that it had canceled her book’s distribution because Tynes “did something truly horrible today.”

After the publishers’ initial statements and the continuing uproar, Tynes was hospitalized with an “acute anxiety reaction,” consisting of high blood pressure, chest pain, and hyperventilation, as well as suicidal ideations, the lawsuit said, adding that she was prescribed several medications to “stabilize” her.

 

On May 21, Tynes temporarily left the US for Jordan, “fearing that her one-year-old baby, her seven year-old twins, and her husband would be the subject of violence, reprisals and harassment at the hands of a mob incited by Rare Bird if she remained in the United States,” according to the lawsuit.

The company subjected “an immigrant woman of color to this racial torment for their own personal profit,” and forced her “to flee to the Middle East to escape persecution” in the US, the lawsuit said.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tasneemnashrulla/dc-metro-writer-tweet-eating-train-book-sue-publisher?utm_source=dynamic&utm_campaign=bffbbuzzfeedvideo&ref=bffbbuzzfeedvideo

[Delusional Aura 5,129]

How entitled can you really be. Thank God she lost her book deal.... Its what she deserves. 

[PunkTheFunk 125,703]

It's what she deserves

[BLACKOUTbritney 22,369]

Sis just apologise and move on  

Some people really find apologies hard don’t they? I don’t get it. You do something wrong and upset people and apologising isn’t one of the first things that comes to mind?  

[skaxboy 6,889]

She’s ridiculous for doing this.

 

If Tynes didn’t have enough time to eat, then perhaps she could have eaten once she was at work. 

The publishing company did NOT defame Tynes, Tynes was ridiculed online by social media users, not the publishing company. If anything, the bus worker should sue Tynes for actual defamation.

 

Tynes said she was hospitalized with heart complications. Tynes most likely suffered heart complications due to her stressful lifestyle. Having a career and a family is a lot already, but Tynes VOLUNTARILY chose to write a book and in choosing to do that, she may have created those health conditions on her own before the entire incident. 

[joanoflark 3,824]

that's what you get for being a dumb bitch 

[weed 78,870]

forced her “to flee to the Middle East to escape persecution”  sis you made a messy tweet

[MrDaniel 14,666]

[Reginald 13,841]

[FentyGa 14,340]

all of this is so stupid lmao