Last night on Access All Areas, TOWIE’s Bobby Norris hit back at the horrific trolling he’s received in recent weeks and revealed being subjected to acid attack and death threats.
Speaking to hosts Joanna Chimonides and Stephen Leng, the reality star exclaimed: “The thing is, you can troll me ‘til I’m old and grey, like 94-years-old. I’m a gay man. Your trolling isn’t gonna make me go to bed tonight and wake up straight in the morning!”
Speaking of his latest Instagram Live series Get Gobby With Bobby, which see’s him interviewing fellow reality stars during isolation, he confessed: “It’s so disappointing that something that’s been set up to be a positive place gets tarnished with trolls that clearly get something out of it.
“There is that double edged kind of side to it where you don’t really want to address it and give them the platform. But also… it’s almost weird not to.”
Saturday night saw the TOWIE star go live with Love Island’s Amber Gill, where he was sickened by the amount of users making fun of his appearance and being homophobic. Talking of the horrific abuse, the 33-year-old described it as: “Absolutely awful and vile. To the point where from the Saturday night to kind of like Monday morning I thought, ‘I’m gonna take a break from social media, this is so full on’.
“I’ve always said, I can handle it, I’ve got a thick skin and I have and I’m so aware there’s many people out there that can’t, who are affected by it so badly that it affects their mental health and they self-harm and it’s awful that some people even take their own lives over it.”
Referring to the tragic death of TV presenter Caroline Flack earlier this year, Bobby explained: “It was only a few months ago that everyone was jumping on social media saying ‘Be Kind’ and then fast forward eight or twelve weeks and people have just completely gone back to not realising that trolling, it’s not banter, it’s not funny. It really is online abuse. To kind of try and dismiss it and think it’s a laugh, it’s really not.”
Last year the Essex star set up the End The Trend To Troll campaign, which led to talks in Downing Street, the House of Commons and Parliament. Speaking of the vile reactions he got to the campaign, he revealed: “It ironically made so many trolls come for me because I think they thought, ‘oh hold on a minute, if he does something about this, you’re gonna ruin our fun’. So I kind of put myself on the line and got trolled more than I was before because I was trying to end it, which I guess is kind of ironic!
“I got such bad death threats, I was told there was people outside my house that were gonna stab me with eleven inch machetes and throw acid in my face. And this is all because of my sexuality. I mean it’s 2020 guys, come on.”
To listen to the full chat with Bobby Norris, head here.
#TOWIE star @BobbyCNorris hit back at online trolls and revealed recent death threats when he chatted to @JChimonides and @SteveLeng on last night’s #AccessAllAreas. Listen back to the full chat via https://t.co/PgpNjTaYcL pic.twitter.com/eMiOl2cn7n
— FUBAR Radio (@FubarRadio) May 1, 2020
