Watch: Pop Star Zara Larsson Denies Anti-Gay Slur, Steps Back from TikTok

Swedish pop star Zara Larsson took to TikTok to say that an image of her seemingly hurling a homophobic slur was faked and she's quitting the platform for a while due to a tsunami of criticism over it.

The 25-year-old singer posted a video at her own TikTok account to dispute what she claims was a faked post, Metro reports.

Telling her followers – who number nearly one and a half million – "I hate that I have to do this," Larsson, who was preparing to go out to celebrate her 25th birthday, "explained that someone had mocked up a fake comment that appeared to show her using a slur, but insisted the image was edited," Metro recounted.

"Addressing her followers while wrapped in a shawl, Larsson... revealed she'd been inundated with comments accusing her of writing the insult and said the incident had 'ruined TikTok' for her," the report added.

The pop singer said that she had "already talked about it twice" at the platform, but her posts "disappear".

@zaralarsson For fucksssssss sake
♬ original sound - Zara Larsson

"Let's just say for the last and final time: I have not called anyone a slur, OK?" Larsson declared. She then shared her side of the story: "Sometimes I can't hold my tongue, like I need to say something. He edited that comment saying I called him something else, which I didn't do. Everyone who knows me knows I would never call someone a slur."

Larsson went on to say that she was "getting pissed, because this was three weeks ago and I'm still getting thousands of comments every day saying I was rude to someone, which I would never be."

Larsson then announced that she would be taking a break from TikTok.

"I used to love TikTok, I thought it was so fun. And now this has kind of ruined the experience for me," she disclosed. "I will take a little break from TikTok because I'm a human being and it makes me sad, honestly."

Noting that the purportedly doctored image has seemingly been scrubbed, Metro related that "many of Larsson's fans presumed it had been fabricated and were quick to jump to her defense.

"One person wrote beneath her latest post: 'Pls it didn't even look real. How are people taking it seriously.' "

Larsson isn't the only celebrity to step away from social media lately. "Heartstopper" star Kit Connor announced last September that he was quitting that platform; the tweet came well in advance of Twitter's current problems in the wake of billionaire Elon Musk purchasing the platform for $44 billion in October, then engaging in a series of controversial, high-profile decisions about allowable content and other policy shifts.

Connor's stepping away from Twitter took place after he was relentlessly hounded about his private life. Some fans of the gay romance, which has been renewed for at least two more seasons at Netflix, accused Connor of "queerbaiting" because, though he plays a bisexual high school athlete on the show, he was unwilling to label his sexuality publicly.

Connor returned to the service briefly to come out as bisexual, and to chide those he said had "forc[ed] an 18 year old to out himself." Though he has remained quiet on other social media platforms as well, Connor has posted to Instagram a few times, including after winning an Emmy for his work on the show.