Twitter has permanently banned the account of a GOP congressional candidate after he posted a racist picture targeting soon-to-be royal bride Meghan Markle.
On Friday, Wisconsin Republican Paul Nehlen tweeted an image of Markle with Prince Harry that superimposed a picture of “Cheddar Man” onto Markle’s face, according to Newsweek. Cheddar Man is the oldest complete skeleton found in Britain and new DNA analysis suggests he had dark skin and dark, curly hair.
The image was captioned, “Honey, does this tie make my face look pale?”
Nehlen’s tweet was immediately condemned by many, including actor Patrick J. Adams, who co-starred with Markle on “Suits.”
Adams called Nehlen, who is running to replace House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), a “sad and sick man with no sense of shame or class.”
Nehlen responded to the outcry with a tweet claiming he was using a joke to gripe about articles that use science to “‘prove’ whites never existed.
Twitter confirmed to Newsweek on Monday that Nehlen has been permanently banned “for repeated violations of our terms of service.”
The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel calls Nehlen an “outrage artist” who has used similar techniques to raise funds and his own profile.
Last month, he posted a list of his critics on Twitter and said most of them are Jewish. He later posted the names, phone numbers and email addresses of critics who reached out to his campaign to complain.
In December, HuffPost asked Nehlen if he was a white nationalist. Two times he dodged the question and the third time, he didn’t respond.