*”God, why the hell did they suddenly add a black character, and now I have to do scenes with him?
Absolutely disgusting.”*
*”F**k, those yellow monkeys in Japan want me to come act for them?
Turn it down, right now.”*
*”How the hell does a black woman like Viola get an Oscar nomination?
Are the judges all blind?”*
*”…”*
Privately, Cathy was petty, entitled, and cruel, a stark contrast to the elegant, gracious image she projected in public.
No wonder Tony Stark had cut ties with her so completely and never appeared with her in public again.
*Heh.
Let’s see if this finishes you off.*
Mark logged into AOL forums using Cathy’s own account and posted screenshots of the emails.
AOL was, at the time, the highest traffic community site in the entire country, functioning as a hybrid of social media, forums, and news all rolled into one.
Countless celebrities ran their own columns there to interact with fans, and Cathy was no exception.
She had a following in the millions.
The racist remarks posted under her account spread like wildfire across every major forum and community site within the hour.
America had roughly a hundred and fifty million internet users by now.
Online news still couldn’t quite match the reach of mainstream TV, but it was closing the gap fast.
Within an hour, the entire internet was in an uproar.
Cathy’s racist comments had gone completely viral, dominating the headlines of every major news site.
**#ImageShattered!
Cathy Dale caught making vile racist remarks in private!#**
**#Cathy Dale’s racist comments spark public outrage!#**
**#Zero tolerance: Cathy Dale must answer for her racism!#**
For a public figure, racism was about as damaging as it got, second only to violent crime.
Barring some miracle, Cathy’s career was finished.
Hilton Hotel, presidential suite.
Cathy was in bed playing cards with a fresh-faced Hollywood newcomer who’d just turned twenty.
The room was thick with the charge of an affair in progress, the air punctuated with breathless, flushed sounds.
*Ring ring ring…*
A phone rang sharply in the room.
Without breaking stride, Cathy reached her pale arm over to the nightstand and grabbed it. Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
“Mm…
hello, what is it?”
She answered between breathless gasps.
“Cathy, are you out of your damn mind?
Why the hell would you post that chat log online?!”
Her agent Griffin’s furious voice roared through the receiver.
Griffin had gotten the call from the agency and, the moment he saw what Cathy had posted, felt like the ground had opened up beneath him.
She’d crossed the one line Hollywood absolutely never forgave: racism.
And to make matters infinitely worse, one of the leaked screenshots included an email exchange where he himself had chimed in agreeably to one of her rants about Viola’s Oscar nomination.
Now that the chat logs were public, not only was Cathy’s career on the line, Griffin himself was likely about to get blacklisted from the industry entirely.
“Wh…
what’s going on?”
Cathy was still dazed, no idea what had happened.
“You don’t even know what you did?!
Your private racist rants got posted online under your own account!
Get on AOL right now and delete every single one of those posts!”
Griffin bellowed the order.
He had no idea if it would actually help at this point, but it was better than leaving them up.
“That wasn’t me, I didn’t…”
Cathy tried to protest, but Griffin had already hung up on her.
Griffin’s words finally sank in, and panic set in fast.
She shoved the boy still lying on top of her clean off the bed, not sparing another thought for their tryst.
Stumbling to her feet, she didn’t even bother getting dressed before rushing to the next room to power on her computer.
Logging into AOL, Cathy found exactly what Griffin had described: screenshots of her own emails, posted from her account over an hour ago.
“That’s impossible!
What the hell is going on?!”
Cathy was utterly stunned.
Beneath the screenshots, comments from users were piling up by the second.
*”Cathy Dale can rot.
I can’t believe I ever liked you.
Didn’t know you were a racist piece of garbage.”*
Never watching another one of your movies again.”*
*”People like her need to be run out of the industry.”*
*”…”*
Every single comment tore into her without mercy.
Cathy didn’t waste time reading further, scrambling frantically to delete every screenshot she could find.
The racist posts were gone within minutes, but the internet never truly forgets, and the story kept snowballing regardless.
By the next morning, every major TV network had picked it up.
That was the moment it truly exploded.
Cathy Dale, one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, found herself facing near universal condemnation.
By that afternoon, crowds had already begun gathering in protest, holding up posters of her face with a jarring red X slashed across it.
CAA initially tried to protect her.
After all, Cathy brought in close to a hundred million dollars a year between her salary and endorsements, and the agency’s cut alone ran into the tens of millions.
They weren’t eager to let go of a cash cow like that.
They held a press conference that same day.
“Following our investigation, we’ve determined that Cathy Dale’s computer was compromised by a hacker, who then posted a number of inappropriate statements under her account…”
CAA’s PR manager, Grant, tried to spin the story, pinning the blame squarely on the hacker.
“Even if the hacker posted the screenshots, those were still Cathy Dale’s own words in the emails, weren’t they?”
A reporter stood up and cut straight through the attempted cover-up.
Grant was left speechless, unable to deny the facts staring him in the face.
The press conference wrapped up in a hurry shortly after.
Once the story broke wider, it wasn’t just Cathy taking heat anymore.
CAA itself came under fire for trying to shield her.
Left with no other option, the agency decided to cut its losses and abandon her entirely, posting an official statement on their website shortly after.
*”In light of the inappropriate statements made by our represented talent, Cathy Dale, the company has decided on the following actions.”*
*”Cathy Dale will be recast in all projects she is currently filming, and she is barred from participating in any future company projects.”*
*”All endorsement deals, commercial contracts, and public appearances have been cancelled.
Cathy Dale will be personally responsible for any resulting breach of contract penalties.”*
*”All agents and PR staff previously assigned to Cathy Dale have been dissolved from her team, and she is barred from attending any further company events or gatherings.”*
CAA had, in effect, blacklisted her completely.
And it wasn’t just CAA.
Other major studios across Hollywood soon issued their own statements, declaring they would no longer work with Cathy Dale in any capacity going forward.