Fans are directing their hatred once again at Oprah Winfrey after she referred to their criticism of her Maui fundraiser with Dwayne Johnson as ‘vitriol’…

When Oprah Winfrey and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson started a fundraising effort last month to assist individuals impacted by the wildfires in Hawaii, they invited average people to make donations. In response, they were met with a large amount of backlash and criticism. Winfrey eventually reacted to the criticism after it had been leveled at her for weeks, but her followers were underwhelmed by what she had to say.

According to reports by CNN, 115 individuals lost their lives as a result of the devastating wildfires that ripped across huge parts of Maui, Hawaii, in August. The flames damaged or destroyed hundreds of houses on the island. According to a statement that was released by the County of Maui on September 12, the blaze that was threatening the region of Lahaina has been completely extinguished, while the blazes that were threatening Olinda and Kula have been confined to 90% and 95% respectively.

Winfrey and Johnson made an appearance on both their Instagram and TikTok accounts on August 31 to introduce their new philanthropic initiative, the People’s Fund of Maui. The People’s Fund of Maui was created with the intention of raising money to help individuals who had been directly affected by the wildfires. Winfrey and Johnson also made a plea to viewers to donate money to the cause.

Along with the image was a lengthy description in which it was revealed that they had personally kickestarted the fund with a gift of $10 million between the two of them and invited others to give as well.

The video was met with significant opposition, as thousands of comments posted across social media questioned why the duo couldn’t dig deeper into their own pockets, as viewers pointed to their vast personal wealth, or why they couldn’t ask fellow celebrities for money, rather than appealing to ordinary people who may be struggling financially.

According to a previous article by Insider, Forbes has calculated that Winfrey’s net worth is $2.5 billion, while Johnson’s net worth is $270 million. This indicates that the two of them gave less than 0.5 percent of their entire fortune to the event.

Winfrey made an appearance on CBS Mornings on Tuesday to promote her newest book and squarely addressed the criticism that she has received.

Winfrey characterized the criticism as a “onslaught of being terrorized and vilified online” in the piece, which was uploaded to TikTok and YouTube. She also said that the experience taught her “so much more compassion” for younger people who may have gone through a similar experience while using the internet.

“When I woke up the next morning, I saw all of this vitriol, and I was like, woah, what happened here?” “I was so excited, and I got up the night before, and I saw all of this vitriol,” During the course of the conversation, Winfrey said that she continued to believe that the charity event was “a really strong idea.”

She referred to the response as “attacks, lies, and conspiracy theories” and said that it “really took the focus off of what was the most important thing, and that was the people of Maui.”

Winfrey went on to explain that the campaign was in part inspired by the charitable work that Dolly Parton has done in the past, including when the country singer established a fund in 2016 to assist those living in Tennessee who had been impacted by wildfires.

The TikTok video of the interview that was released by CBS Mornings garnered over 880,000 views. However, there were only 18,300 likes compared to 13,500 comments, which is an exceptionally low ratio for a video of this size and suggests that it was not well received.

As they had done throughout the previous weeks, a small percentage of comments appeared to come to Winfrey’s defense; however, the majority continued the criticism, as they believed Winfrey hadn’t directly addressed the core issue viewers had expressed, which was the fact that the duo had asked regular people to donate funds rather than contributing more themselves.

One viewer commented in a remark that became popular, “Did Oprah just double down and gaslight us??” Another one of the top comments read, “She still isn’t getting it.”

A TikToker by the name of @tanyabeautycoach who indicated that Winfrey was just shutting her ears to the comments and dismissing the criticism as coming from “haters” gained over 650,000 views when she produced a rebuttal video on September 12 in which she presented a portion of the CBS Mornings interview. The video resulted in an additional 4,850 comments on the subject, the majority of which continued to criticize both the fundraiser and the way that Winfrey was responding to the backlash.

One viewer stated in a popular remark that earned over 1,760 likes, “They don’t value our opinion but want our money,” and although some slammed Winfrey as being “out of touch,” described her reaction as “maddening,” and warned that more criticism would come her way, others liked the viewer’s message.

Insider reached out to both Winfrey and Johnson for their thoughts, but neither one of them immediately answered.