Appearing on the Jeremy Kyle show on Wednesday morning, Big Brother’s Rebekah Shelton was keen to clear up the rumours that she had faked her own death.
A Twitter post from her own account, written in January, revealed she had died – but it was later confirmed to be a hoax.
Rebekah, 32, who appeared on the Channel 5 show as Rodrigo Lopes in 2009, before undergoing gender reassignment surgery in 2014, confided in Jeremy Kyle that at one point she was so freaked out she thought she had actually died.
While critics accused the reality TV star of faking her own death as part of an elaborate PR stunt, Rebekah denied she would do such a thing.
She said the post, thought to have been a hacker, even left her friends and family grieving her loss.
“I woke up to many messages from people on my phone saying I was an angel and they said, ‘Rest in peace, now your problems have finished.’
“I thought for a second, ‘Am I dead?’ It was very emotionally damaging,” she revealed.
Clearly furious that she had been accused of faking her own death to get back into the spotlight, Rebekah added, “I’m not being arrogant, but who are the people who said I was faking the news about my own death?
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“You know who? A couple of losers. You know where they are now? I don’t either.”
Jeremy then agreed that the cruel trolls were indeed “sad muppets’.
Rebekah also discussed why she had been away from the limelight for so long, revealing how she needed to adjust and recover after 16 surgeries.
“I had lots of dreams as Rodrigo and suddenly I had to start my new life, as my new self. I feel good now, but what you see here now, it’s just a mask. Inside I’m quite a vulnerable person. I’m emotional,” Rebekah told Jeremy.
Rebekah also confessed that she found it hard to leave behind the dream of having biological children of her own.
“I left so many dreams behind – maybe to achieve the dream of having a family one day. I know I can’t get pregnant, so I won’t be coming here for DNA.”
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Opening up about how she felt ostracised from her family, Rebekah added: “It was the most psychological pain that someone could ever feel. I’ve been through 16 surgeries. When I had the main surgery, I was in hospital by myself.”
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