George Zimmerman‘s parents a filed a lawsuit against Roseanne Barr claiming that by tweeting out their identities, address, and phone number back on March 29, 2012, she sent them into hiding!
While Roseanne allegedly tweeted their address because she believed that George was living in their house, according to the lawsuit George hadn’t dwelled there since 2006.
Roseanne since deleted the tweet, but then sent out this one in an attempt to explain why she’d reveal the private address of someone else:
At first I thought it was good to let ppl know that no one can hide anymore
— Roseanne Barr (@TheRealRoseanne) March 29, 2012
Yikes. We don’t think that’s going to work well for her in this lawsuit.
Roseanne at the time also claimed that she didn’t know that her tweets were public not private, which seems like a pretty impossible thing to do for anyone who has any remote understanding of what Twitter is:
@MellowMaxG I deleted it After not fully understanding that it was private not public
— Roseanne Barr (@TheRealRoseanne) March 29, 2012
However, then she reportedly sent out a tweet that kind of undermines lack of understanding:
“If Zimmerman isn’t arrested I’ll rt his address again- maybe go 2 his house myself”
The Zimmermans have thus accused Roseanne of knowing what she was doing by tweeting out their address, which they consider “an open and obvious call for vigilante justice” that was meant “to cause a lynch mob to descend” on their home.
They also assert that her tweet violated Twitter’s terms of service.
Although they claim that the tweet made them flee their home, near the time of the tweet in question, the Orlando Sentinel had reported that the Zimmermans had already moved out of the house due to death threats.
We’ll see how all of this develops. The Zimmermans want compensation for emotional distress and invasion of privacy.
[Image via Brian To/WENNABC.]