Controversial New Jersey Mayor Resigns After Calling Locals ‘Incestuous, Illiterate Imbeciles’

Natal­ie Stone, the deputy may­or of Taber­na­cle Town­ship in New Jer­sey, has resigned from her posi­tion after fac­ing back­lash over a scathing Face­book post she wrote in 2020 about local residents.

In the post, Stone referred to the res­i­dents, known as “Pineys”, as “inces­tu­ous, illit­er­ate, men­tal­ly defi­cient, inbred imbeciles.”

The con­tro­ver­sial com­ments resur­faced last month, prompt­ing calls for Stone’s res­ig­na­tion dur­ing a town meet­ing. While Stone ini­tial­ly apol­o­gized for the remarks, she ulti­mate­ly stepped down, claim­ing she was the tar­get of a “bul­ly­ing cam­paign” by out­raged locals.

Stone, who was elect­ed in Jan­u­ary, alleges that her crit­ics dug up the social media post after she vot­ed in favor of demol­ish­ing Taber­na­cle’s 19th-cen­tu­ry town hall. She claims the “uncon­trolled uproar” was aimed at her, but not the two male com­mit­tee mem­bers who vot­ed the same way.

The for­mer may­or, who also used to be an actress in inde­pen­dent films, says the rea­son she quit was because she real­ized she would­n’t be able to get any­thing done due to the con­stant “ridi­cul­ing” of her by the community.

Stone also revealed that she had been read­ing a book about New Jer­sey’s “Lost Piney Cul­ture” when she made the comments.