EMMERDALE’S Michelle Hardwick opened up on the horrific homophobic abuse she received online.
The 45-year-old actress, who plays Vanessa Woodfield in the ITV soap, poured her heart out on the Out with Suzi Ruffell podcast and explained trolls forced her off social media.
It came after Michelle and her wife Kate Brooks were trolled for giving birth to their son Teddy last year following their IVF journey.
Michelle spoke of how she and Kate took a break from socials after their baby was born after one foul troll told the pair they were “going to hell”.
Opening up, Michelle said: “We had a little social media break because we had a terrible, terrible comment on one of his pictures, telling me and Kate we’d burn in hell and it’s absolutely disgusting, it’s wrong.
“You’re just like, ‘Oh really? In 2021?’ You know, do what you want, say what you want about me and Kate or say what you want under a picture, but do not put it under a picture of our son.
“I never, ever respond or re-tweet or whatever, but I did with that one. I put it out there onto Twitter and the response was fantastic.”
Michelle said that is the exact reason why Gay Pride is still needed here in the UK.
She continued: “When you do get those odd people that’ll turn round and say, ‘Well why do you still have gay pride, why do you need that?’ Then you go, ‘Because of people like that.
“That’s why we still need them. To normalise it as much as we can’.”
“It’s very easy for people to say, ‘Oh but you had thousands of comments – positive ones’. It’s that one negative one though, that you cannot get out of your mind,” Michelle added.
Kate and Michelle previously revealed their IVF journey with their son had been a “rollercoaster of emotions”.
Michelle wrote on her Instagram: “From the initial injections, to the transfer of Kate’s egg to me, it’s been a rollercoaster of emotions but we wouldn’t change it for the whole world.
“Teddy, you made it all worthwhile,” she said in a caption under a pic of their baby.
The couple moved in together two years ago and were married in 2019 at Graceland after eloping to America.
