GettyOlly Murs has been called out for his response after getting caught up in the ‘incident’ at Oxford Circus earlier this evening.
In the midst of what now seems to have been a false alarm, Murs posted a series of tweets detailing ‘gun shots’ at Oxford Circus and shared details of the ‘heart-pounding’ experience with his eight million followers.
“Everyone get out of Selfridges now gun shots!! I’m inside,” Olly posted from the scene, followed up with, “Evacuating store now!!! F*** heart is pounding.”
However, after the panic had calmed down, Twitter flew back into action, with many mercilessly trolling Murs for his ‘dramatic reaction’.
Here’s a few examples…
MY heart just skipped a beat
— Football Fan (@jmg80jmg) November 24, 2017
That’s it Olly lad, keep everyone calm.
— Wolf Of Mare Street (@acwolfofmarest) November 24, 2017
Heart pounding or has it just skip skipped a beat
— Jill houghton (@Jillyanarama) November 24, 2017
However, others pointed out Olly’s posts could have had serious implications.
One of those was of course Good Morning Britain presenter and everyone’s favourite guardian of social acceptability Piers Morgan.
Stop tweeting mate @ollyofficial. Nothing happened.
— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) November 24, 2017
Listen piers! I was shopping and then all of sudden the whole place went mad, I mean crazy people running & screaming towards exits. We found a small office to hide to which loads of staff and people were saying there was shots fired. If you was there you’d have understood mate. https://t.co/mnZBTSLod4
— Olly Murs (@ollyofficial) November 24, 2017
No. You listen, Olly. When you have millions of followers be very careful what you tweet. There were no shots, in fact nothing happened at all. So you stirred extra needless panic by tweeting false information. https://t.co/6L3xTBlwuA
— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) November 24, 2017
No you listen Piers.. your comments are unfair mate. It’s Easy to say now it was nothing but in a state of shock and panic I was trying to make people aware of what was happening. Which I was lend to believe by staff and customers that someone was shooting. https://t.co/qFJRfOpqJk
— Olly Murs (@ollyofficial) November 24, 2017
But old Piers just couldn’t let it lie…
Leave it to the police next time.
It’s not your place to tell people to evacuate or say (wrongly) that shots were fired. You could have put people in more danger. https://t.co/AJv8rj3fii— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) November 24, 2017
Thankfully, Olly – along with hundreds of other people who of course had no idea that there was no immediate danger – later confirmed he was safe.
Unless you’ve been involved win an incident like this there’s no way of knowing how you will react, but if you do have millions of social media followers it’s certainly worth remembering how easy it is to inadvertently spread false information.
