On twitter: Are celebrities seeing my reply to them if I protect my tweets?

[baby g]

I am following them but they are not following me? If I put a message like: "@celebrity Hi How are you?" Can they see this message or not? I protect my tweets so other people can't publicly see what I write but can the people I follow see what I write or even reply back to me?

[Jon]

Yes, they can see it; you're sending it to them, after all. If you protect your tweets, all that means is that people trying to view your Twitter page can't see them, and they can't get them via RSS, either.