A young Justin Bieber fan was bombarded with vile abuse from jealous girls after the star re-tweeted a message of support from her.
15-year-old Courtney Barrasford from Portsmouth was chuffed when Justin re-posted her review of his Believe Acoustic album to his 35 million fans – but her delight turned to horror when dozens of his followers turned on her.
Courtney had tweeted 'Not really a fan of Justin Bieber but his acoustic album is really good!' but her faint praise combined with Justin's re-tweet caused some of his fans to see red.
The schoolgirl suddenly found herself inundated with hateful messages and taunts, with some posters even urging her to kill herself.
The Mail reports that one girl, claiming to be a 12-year-old fan from the US, wrote: "Just tell her to die and leave Justin alone."
Another wrote: "I am a Belieber of him since 2009 and he didn't notice me. And you're not even a f****** fan. You get noticed. OMG."
One girl took her outrage out on Justin, tweeting: "U notice her n she's not even a fan. I am but you won't notice me :) Can anyone hear me crying?"
Courtney said she ignored the messages at first and didn't let them get to her, but when 'fans' started posting that she was pregnant with Bieber's child, the abuse began to take its toll.
"It wasn't too bad at first, but then it started to get worse as more people found out. I had things like 'you're not a fan, go kill yourself'.
"So far things hadn't got to me. But then they started saying I was pregnant with his child, and that my child would be a prostitute," the devastated teen said.
Courtney's mum Tina, 45, branded the situation was 'silly' and 'out of control'.
"It's because of jealousy, and all because of a re-tweet," she said.
Courtney said she now wants to warn other social network users to be careful about what they post on the web.
"I don't think these people would say it face-to-face. But it's still not nice to hear," she said. "I would say to people to ignore it and stop using the site for a while. Don't reply to these people because they will only hate you more."
Her mum agreed. "These sites need more monitoring by those that run them and parents of children that use them," she said. "I wonder if the parents of the 12-year-old know about what their daughter has been posting?"