Molly-Mae has defended her controversial podcast comments after her surname was changed to Thatcher on Wikipedia.
The former Love Island star sparked outrage on social media after making “tone deaf” comments about how she obtained her wealth and success.
The 22-year-old millionaire, who is the creative director for PrettyLittleThing, spoke about her career on Stephen Bartlett’s podcast The Diary of a CEO.
She made a number of comments in the interview – such as that everyone has “the same 24 hours in a day” and that “if you want something enough, you can achieve it”.
(Image: The Diary Of A CEO/Youtube)
Many were outraged and felt that she wasn’t acknowledging her privileged position and the financial struggles of others.
However, online trolls proceeded to change her surname to ‘Molly-Mae Thatcher’ on Wikipedia – although this has now been amended.
Molly’s representatives have now spoken out in a statement shared to the Metro on Friday (January 7).
A statement from the influencer’s team read: “Molly did a podcast interview in December about her own rise to success. If you listen to the full conversation and interview Molly was asked about how the nature of her potential grows and how she believes in herself. This part of the interview was discussing time efficiency relating to success.
“Molly refers to a quote which says “We all have the same 24 hours in a day as Beyonce”. She was discussing her own experience and how she can resonate with this specific quote.
‘Her opinion on if you want something enough you can work hard to achieve it is how she keeps determined with her own work to achieve more in her own life. Molly is not commenting on anyone else’s life or personal situation she can only speak of her own experience.
The statement continued: “She acknowledges that everyone is raised in different ways and from different backgrounds but her comments here are in reference to timing, hard work and determination in her own life. If you listen to this interview you can see the whole conversation was about her own personal circumstances, how she has grown up and this small clip in the conversation was talking about a quote that inspires her.”
(Image: Instagram)
The statement added that social media users had “shared a short snippet” from the interview with words that don’t belong to Molly, and that they’d missed the meaning of the conversation.
Social media users had branded her ‘Thatcher with a tan’ for her views on hard work – possibly citing the late prime minister’s beliefs in the individual as opposed to society.
In the candid interview, Molly said that she worked her ‘a**e off to acquire the success and fortune.
(Image: Corbis via Getty Images)
She said: “You’re given one life and it’s down to you what you do with it. You can literally go in any direction.
“When I’ve spoken about that in the past I have been slammed a little bit, with people saying ‘it’s easy for you to say that because you’ve not grown up in poverty, so for you to sit there and say we all have the same 24 hours in a day is not correct.’ But, technically, what I’m saying is correct. We do.”
She continued: “I understand we all have different backgrounds and we’re all raised in different ways and we do have different financial situations, but I think if you want something enough you can achieve it.”
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
