The Batman star Jeffrey Wright has become embroiled in an unexpected Twitter feud over claims that he operates a dodgy gold mine in Africa.

A Twitter account by the name of @theeSNYDERVERSE shared an old New York Times article with the headline “Jeffrey Wright’s Gold Mine”. “The way y’all have forgotten that your Jim Gordon owns a literal blood diamond gold mine in Sierra Leone and is fighting those child labour allegations with his life,” the post was captioned, presumably in an attempt to “cancel” the actor.

Amazingly, Wright actually responded personally after another account tagged him in the original post. “No, I don’t. Never did. That doesn’t stop people though. That’s how we livin’ now,” he simply wrote.

That could have been the end of it, but @theeSNYDERVERSE continued to push Wright’s buttons, posting a zoomed-in picture of Wright in a gold mine tunnel from the NYT piece.

“And? That pic’s taken at the mouth of an artisanal mine worked by local miners (in seriously challenging conditions),” Wright replied. “Our group was *hoping* to modernize operations there. We never owned or operated a mine.”

The actor then supplied some evidence, tagging @mcbphotos, the taker of the gold mine picture. “And to be clear, we were hoping to build, own, operate a gold mine in S Leone,” Wright continued. “And do that in direct partnership w/local community. Local community was to own a significant stake. And we wanted to augment with investment in ag dev & healthcare, etc. Never got there. Tough battle.”

Incredibly, at the time of writing, Wright’s online battle with @theeSNYDERVERSE and others is continuing. Among other things, Wright has claimed that the original NYT article was “inaccurate” because the writer “didn’t understand mine development sequence.”

It really doesn’t pay to be in the public eye these days. This week alone, an old clip purportedly showing Zoë Kravitz grooming Jaden Smith has been widely shared after her attack on his dad Will Smith; old footage of Jim Carrey’s wild antics at an awards ceremony has been used against him after he also criticised Will Smith; there were also calls to cancel Wright’s The Batman co-star Robert Pattinson for reportedly using the n-word in an old interview.

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