14 DAY TRIAL // The incident in which vine star Jessi Smiles accused fellow internet celebrity Curtis Lepore of raping her while she slept after having suffered a concussion, is taking a turn for the strange.
It's now emerged that Jessi has been the recipient of multiple death threats and accusations of lying about the incident in order to become more famous. Most of the accusations are made by Curtis Lepore's huge fan base which numbers over 6 million people.
Lepore was arrested last October for allegedly raping Smiles as she slept. He was charged with rape but pled not guilty when he appeared in court last week.
Addressing the issue, he posted a video on Vine in which he told fans that “There's two sides to every story. When the time is right, I will have something to say.”
As opposed to his usual videos, in which he is seen smiling and playing the jokester, this time he looked straight-faced to the camera and sounded serious, an indication on the gravity of the situation.
If Lepore took the high road and decided to remain silent and let the judicial system sort out the reported assault, his fans were much more vocal and inundated Smiles with hate messages, most of which spoke the same thing: she was doing this for the attention.
Jessi Smiles and Curtis Lepore were each famous on the Vine website that is made up of user videos just six seconds long. The pair got together at the suggestion of the fans and ended up having a relationship for a couple of weeks.
They later decided to split up but remained friends and continued to make videos together for Vine. The raping incident is thought to have taken place after Smiles suffered a concussion during the filming of one such video.
Lepore offered to help her through her convalescence, but once he was in her home, he proceeded to rape her while she slept, Smiles alleges.
In the meantime, Smiles does not appear to be deterred by all the hate mail coming her way. She chose to focus on the positive messages from her supporters when she tweeted “I've said it before and I'll say it again … you just have to love the love more than you hate the hate.”