Former X Factor winner Alexandra Burke hits back at 15-year-old girl who ‘sent her death threats’.
Chatting to host Bobby Norris on Access All Areas, the chart topping star reflected on the shocking abuse she has received online: “I received death threats years ago and had an issue there… We found out who the person was, it was a 15-year-old girl.”
Alexandra, who is no new victim to comments like these since winning X Factor in 2008, went on to explain that when the girl was caught, she tried to apologise. “She wrote a letter to me and said ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t realise what I was doing’.
It was too late to ask for the singer’s forgiveness, as she refuses to accept that trolling can ever be an accident: “When you are writing the words ‘I want to kill you’ and ‘I’m going to kill you tonight’, you know what you’re doing. I don’t accept that they don’t know what they’re talking about, or they don’t know the effects it will have on people.”
Having experienced the devastating impact online abuse can have firsthand, the West End star has partnered up with AVAST Foundation and shocked Bobby as she highlighted some of their research: “One in fouradults think trolling people, in my industry in particular, is fair game. One in two people amongst 16–24-year-olds actually think it’s ok and acceptable. It blows my absolute mind”.
Despite never having dealt with online abuse very well in the past, the SAS: Who Dares Wins winner added that being on the Channel 4 show has helped her immensely when it comes to dealing with trolling: “It’s only ever been since I’ve done the SAS course that it changed a lot for me in the past year. I feel like a different human being. I’m definitely able to take those comments, read them, and not react as badly as I would say a year ago.”
When asked what she would say to the trolls if they could hear her now, Alex responded: “Kill them with kindness. That’s the most important thing.”
Listen to the full episode of Access All Areas, also featuring Tallia Storm, here.
