august Ames
August Ames has acted in more than 270 adult films August Ames/Instagram

The death of adult actress August Ames has triggered an intense online debate about cyberbullying. The young Canadian porn star ended her life after allegedly being ruthlessly trolled on the internet for refusing to do a porn scene with a man who had performed gay sex on camera.

On 3 December she wrote: "Whichever (lady) performer is replacing me tomorrow... you're shooting with a guy who has shot gay porn, just to let cha know. BS is all I can say Do agents really not care about who they're representing?" She had maintained there was nothing homophobic about her tweet, and that it was rather to do with her heath concerns.

Soon after her tweet, she was slammed with negative comments from social media users. And to make matters worse, many of her colleagues, who also have thousands of followers, slammed Ames for what they thought were her views on the LGBT community.

While many assumed she ended her life after expressing her disgust over cyberbullying with a "f**k y'all" post, that wasn't her final tweet. In fact, in a cryptic message sent to fellow pornstar Aspen Brooks, a transsexual model, she asked her to unfollow her. Soon after her death, Brooks deleted her Twitter account but many internet users are sharing the screenshot of her exchange with Ames.

Ames' friends feel it is unfair to some members of the porn community to attack her for voicing her choice. Pornstar Alison Tyler reveals that the 23-year-old actress was a genuine person. "She was a very sweet, happy girl, I know she battled depression and all that, but being on set with her and seeing her at conventions, she was always a very sweet, genuine person, which is why this is so heartbreaking," she told Hollywood Life.

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Tyler accused her fellow colleagues of attacking her for not wanting to do a job she was uncomfortable with. She said: "A couple of people from the gay industry attacked her pretty hard, were pretty hard on her about her decision, and a few females from the straight industry were also very hard on her and were also very verbal about it and they were some big names in our industry,"

"She made a decision about her body and I don't feel that she needed to defend that decision," Alison added. "If you feel uncomfortable doing something you have every right not to do it or to turn it down or to back out of a scene, and that should not be questioned. Instead of people supporting her for her decision, they attacked her for it, and I feel that is very, very wrong."

Meanwhile, Mail Online columnist Katie Hopkins has slammed Ames' colleague Bruce Beckham and accused him of letting a hate mob lynch the late star. "Sir. You led the mob & they lynched her. Now, in death, please respect the woman you failed to respect in life," she tweeted while sharing a series of tweets by Beckham about Ames.