>>111302300Story I heard:
His forum is a pretty lively community, and some of its members have known each other for years. Some time ago, a long standing member of the community, who lived alone with his elderly mother, passed away quite suddenly.
Privately, friends of his who had met on the forum felt really bad and decided among themselves (using the private message feature on the forum) to raise some money and send a thing of flowers. One of them, who lived relatively close, picked them up and actually attended the funeral, introducing himself to the mother and explaining their online friendship.
Afterwards, the mother was so touched she wrote to Byrne a letter telling him the whole story and thanking him for facilitating a community of nice people.
This is when the story gets fucked.
Apparently, Byrne was livid at this letter. He felt that this group (who where apparently some of his most hardcore, apologist fanboys) had overstepped themselves by showing up at a funeral "representing him". He also felt it was wrong of them to "collect money in his name", or something. He confronted the group. They politely told him that firstly, they hadn't done anything wrong, they never claimed to speak on behalf of Byrne and that it really wasn't any of his business if they communicated "without his blessing". He wouldn't hear of his, they told him he was out of line and he banned them.
So basically, its a story that if any other normal human being had been in Byrne's place, they probably would have been heart warmed and touched by, but for Byrne his reaction was rage and control freak.
