Elle Darby is back online five months after her hateful tweets resurfaced

She posted a statement claiming she’s been working on becoming a better person

2 years ago

YouTuber and influencer Elle Darby has finally returned to Instagram five months after her racist and hateful tweets from over a decade ago resurfaced online.

Yesterday, Elle Darby posted a statement on Instagram claiming she had taken the time offline to “re-evaluate” and “revist areas that need deeper healing”.

The post has since gathered over 90,000 likes and the comment section is full of fans praising Elle Darby for returning to Instagram. However Twitter users are calling out Elle’s fans for accepting her comeback to easily. One person said: “Elle Darbt makes a comeback and suddenly all is forgiven. I hate society sometimes.”

Elle Darby makes a comeback and suddenly all is forgiven, I hate society sometimes

— Alice (@alice2127) May 22, 2022

Here’s what Elle Darby said in her Instagram post about the backlash from her tweets resurfacing

In her statement Elle Darby says: “There are few times in life when it makes more sense to just stop. To take a breath, to re-evaluate, to revisit areas that need deeper healing, and to return when you have the right message: rooted in authenticity and truth. There are so many countless thoughts and feelings I have, too many to write in one caption or say in one video or they have instead been translated into values and lessons I have been fulfilling in my life offline and will be enforcing in my presence online. For the sake of this post, in a nutshell: my thoughts surrounding my resurfaced tweets and the storm surrounding them in January, simply always come back to the people I hurt with the hate and anger that I held. I am sorry. My own heart has been completely broken knowing I had broken yours. I will never be able to apologise enough and I will forever take responsibility for the pain that I inflicted.”

The statement continues: “Through the last 10 years of my life, I have worked on becoming someone better than I was. This is the Elle that you have grown to know through my online journey: committed to self betterment, growth, love, positivity and becoming ‘the best version of myself’. So much so, that trying to connect with and navigate the mind of teenage Elle who wrote such awful tweets was a difficult task to say the least.

“What initially was going to be a short while offline, turned into months’ worth of deep soul searching, an opportunity for me to truly reflect and heal through many parts of my life, and create a plan on how to be a better person. Over the past few months, with help, I took time to revist a past version of myself, a very unhappy and hateful version, to try and understand why she held so much hatred in her heart. I had to learn how to go back and reread my own chapters without feeling like I wanted to set all the pages on fire, so that I could finally close the book. My immoral past is a public tuth I will live with for the rest of my life and I am just learning how to move forward. This is the first step.”

via @elledarby_ on Instagram

In the final slide of her statement, Elle called her past the most “regretful and shameful part” of her life. As a result of it resurfacing Elle says she’s been allowed to reflect and see what she can do better to “evolve”. She describes the first half of 2022 as the “most pivotal” part of her entire existence. Elle also believes now is the time to “show up and begin again”.

Back in January this year, Twitter accounts belonging to Elle Darby and her finacé Connor Swift were found to be using hateful and racist language. On New Year’s Eve 2021, they posted a statement on Instagram saying they both needed time to reflect and take responsibility for their own actions. Since then, Elle posted this YouTube video and Connor uploaded a separate statement onto Instagram back in January this year.

Following Elle uploading her statement yesterday, this morning she made a post showing two photos of herself, Connor and their son Saint on a beach. She captioned it “A forever thing”. Her comment section is mainly full of fans praising her for returning. One person commented: “Remember us angels that stayed loyal through and through” and Elle replied with a red heart.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by ELLE (@elledarby_)

Another person commented saying it’s “so nice to see you back”, and Elle replied with “it’s nice to be back”. However not all of the comments have been positive, one person said: “It’s absolutely outrageous you think you can just come back like nothing has happened after all the people you hurt. No reputable brand will touch you going forward, as should be the case. Shameful behaviour.”