Amy Schumer sympathises with Leslie Jones over Twitter trolls

Amy Schumer reached out to Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones after she was bombarded with vile Twitter messages, because she too has been a victim of hateful trolls.

The actress briefly quit the microblogging site last month (Jul16), shortly after the release of her all-female Ghostbusters reboot, revealing her spirit had been broken by the rude and racist posts Twitter trolls had subjected her to, which she branded her "personal hell".

Leslie returned to the social media site just three days later, but Amy insists she understands where her fellow funnywoman was coming from, because she has been dealing with similar harsh criticism for years - and even made light of the insults she regularly receives in an episode of her sketch comedy show Inside Amy Schumer.

The Trainwreck star has since learned not to pay attention to her detractors, but it took a while for her to grow a thicker skin.

"In terms of the Internet, I feel pretty strong." she tells the Los Angeles Times. "I haven't read a comment for a long time that has made me wince in any way... but I remember how it feels. It feels like your new reality, like your biggest fear has come true. And then once they've come true, you have nothing to be scared of."

Amy reveals she reached out to Leslie at the height of her Twitter backlash, and offered her words of support and encouragement.

"Leslie is a friend and we talked about it," Amy says. "It was just so much hate at once. And you feel like it's never-ending and it is the truth. She was not used to it. I've had 10 years of people sending a lot of vitriol and it's been spread out. For her, it hit like a ton of bricks. I told her, 'You're going to come back and be like, '(F**k) you.' And it's going to make you stronger.'"

The blonde actress, 35, also applauds Leslie for reporting the worst offenders to Twitter officials, prompting them to make changes to the site to crack down on cyberbullying.

She explains, "It took Leslie Jones to get (Twitter) to realize that people are banding together in a violent and dangerous way. And, you know, we can uphold our First Amendment (freedom of speech) and still protect people in a way that isn't careless. I was really happy to see that."