X Factor star Stevi Ritchie has opened up about the slew of horrific online abuse he’s received over the years.
Eight years ago, Stevi auditioned for the 2014 series of the ITV singing competition and came in sixth place as the series’ novelty act.
Being the novelty act can be a fun experience but it does usually come with backlash from fans at home, which Stevi revealed he most certainly experience.
During an exclusive Facebook Live chat with showbiz reporter Carly Hacon, he opened up about the horrible abuse he had hurled at him during his X Factor stint and over recent years.
(Image: instagram.com/thesteviritchie/)
Stevi, 41, said: “I had a lot of trolls, don’t get me wrong, a lot of people were saying you’re s***, of course, it can break you or make you.
“For me, I tried to forget about all that and thought this is my only shot in life to do what I love, for me and my daughter to change our lives that’s all I wanted.
“It was hard, I remember one tweet that always stuck in my mind, I’ll never forget it.
“It was a tweet from someone called Lemonegg or something, it was quite funny, well it wasn’t, it was bloody horrible.
(Image: Dymond/Syco/Thames/Corbis)
“He said to me ‘you’ve got a face like a melted welly and you can’t sing and you’re s***’.
“Looking back, I can laugh now, but at the time it was like ‘ooh, ok that’s really nasty’.
“And then he started picking on my daughter and that’s when I went ‘right, hold up, you can pick on me but not my daughter ‘.
“It was a few years ago now but they said I had a face like a melted welly and that really stuck right there.”
(Image: The Daily Star Online)
The lovable single also detailed the abuse he received while being on the show and said: “When I was on the show, I didn’t know how to work social media, to be honest, I had to be shown how to do Twitter.
“Then I saw all these tweets come up after every show and it would be like ‘get him off’.
“I never let it interfere with me because I thought if I do I’ll never be me and put on a show, so I totally forgot about it, even with the headlines, I was like no, this is me and I’m going to change my life for me and my daughter.
“The weird thing is when I left the show everyone was like ‘bring Stevi back’ so I couldn’t win either way.”
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
