Melissa Jeanine has been slammed for her elitist thread about 'broke people'. Photo / Twitter
Melissa Jeanine has been slammed for her elitist thread about 'broke people'. Photo / Twitter
A self help author and self-professed "millionaire" has been torn down on social media after accusing "broke people" of having "no class whatsoever".
Melissa Jeanine, who describes herself as a businesswoman and "blue collar millionaire", took to Twitter to share a colourful story from the early 2000s about how she made cupcakes for colleagues, but "a bunch of rude, low class, broke obese girls didn't want them".
"Broke people are very low class, have extremely bad manners, have zero etiquette and no class at all whatsoever," she began.
"This was 15 years ago and boy did I learn my lesson quick," she wrote.
"And they share with me their entire network and million dollar connections."
The backlash was fast and furious against the author who had her website crash and had to disable comments on Twitter after more than 4900 people responded.
"Your behaviour is the definition of 'money can't buy class'," one commenter wrote.
Melissa Jeanine has been slammed for her elitist thread about 'broke people'. Photo / Twitter
"Life lesson for you, so-called 'positivity girl'. When you do something for people, do it out of the goodness of your heart and expect nothing in return. If you did it expecting validation, gifts, and bought praise, you did it for the wrong reason," another wrote.
Others wrote the thread appeared to be written for "a parody account" and "this is fake, it has to be".
Jeanine, who is promoting her book Stop Being Average & Start Achieving Excellence, responded after the thread went viral.
"I haven't read any of the comments and I never will," she said.
"My life will always be far too beautiful and exciting to care about the haters and the losers."
But later, having read the comments, she wrote: "All the anger in the comments lol.
"If most of you would put that energy into being productive instead of being pissed off on the internet, you wouldn't be broke at all. You'd all be richer than me in no time."
She appeared to be enjoying the notoriety, telling her followers: "Don't ever let anyone tell you you're not going places.
"I'm currently going viral and my website is going down due to tens of thousands of visitors.
I'm going to make history. Welcome to my revolution."
She told her critics "you don't matter" and "I'm going … to get my toes done" in a tweet accompanied by a picture of a money counter.
When approached by news.com.au to respond to some of the backlash, she offered an "exclusive interview" for $5000.
Jeanine's website, positivityrightnow.com, does not detail how she achieved her success but does say she was "stuck in a middle class abyss", "moved 6 times across 5 states" and "was forced to leave every single one of my middle class friends behind".
Blog entries on the site include "My story of becoming a blue collar millionaire", "I confess I'm a gold digger" and "Why I'm not going to be with a broke man".
"I have a confession to make. I'm a gold digger," she writes.
"Every opportunity I dig for ends in a pot of gold. However, make no mistake, there was no shiny big rainbow at the start of these golden opportunities. I had to have a very long rendezvous with both Mr. Dark Cloud and his big brother Rainy Days before much else would happen."
She writes "broke" men should be avoided because "no wise or pragmatic woman on earth would ever be with a broke man".
"However, not all women are entitled to a man with resources. Just as not all men are entitled to a 19-year old ingenue cum fashion model.
"I have very valid and justifiable reasons for not being with a man who's broke and you will find that they are mostly just basic common sense.
"Broke people simply do not have the same financial goals as rich people. Where rich people want to make more, poor people want to save more. Notwithstanding they are more apt to squander more.
"Furthermore, Joe Q. Average does not possess any amount of knowledge concerning even rudimentary investment vehicles and financial strategies.
"Adding insult to injury, 100 per cent of broke people are risk averse and they are too comfortable with achieving the bare minimum and living paycheck to paycheck."
