Loose Women star opens up about "horrific abuse" from Twitter trolls
Loose Women panellist and ITV News presenter Charlene White has amitted to receiving hate online and has opened up about the effect it's had on her.
In a recent interview with the Mirror, the host was asked whether she has endured online abuse and initially laughed at the question: "I don't know why I'm laughing because I do get some horrific abuse.
"But it's the weird dynamic that because it happens so often, I'm very used to it – which I shouldn't have to be. I'm a black woman in the public eye, so for a lot of people I'm fair game.
"It all came to a head when a member of [a far right group] said, 'I've heard there's a black girl on ITV that doesn't wear a poppy' and told his followers to abuse me in any way they could find," recalled Charlene.
"That's exactly what they did," she went on to say. "We're talking thousands and thousands of comments, petitions to ITV, a Sack The Slag campaign."
However, she admitted that that was an extreme case and: "As long as it doesn't get as bad as that, it's manageable.
"But that upset me a lot. It takes a lot to make me cry, but it got to a point where it was really overwhelming and really did make me cry. It's never been to that particular level since."
One particular topic that gets people online particularly fired up against her is whenever she talks about "anything to do with race": "It's like a barrage of online abuse comes in my direction. But some of that I believe is lack of education.
"One thing that always comes up is, 'Go back to where you came from' and it’s like, 'Dude, for a start my parents were British subjects when they came here,'" explained Charlene.
"So it's a real lack of understanding of our history."
Loose Women airs on weekdays at 12.30pm on ITV.
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