Rochelle Humes previously admitted fears for her family after receiving death threats.
The TV favourite – who is hosting The Hit List this weekend (September 7) – host was left “devastated” by the threats that she received in 2021 after it was announced she would be hosting a documentary on black women and childbirth.
The singer spoke about her experiences during an appearance on The Diary of a CEO podcast a year later, in February 2022.
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Why did Rochelle Humes receive death threats?
In 2021, Rochelle became embroiled in a colourism row.
It was alleged that Rochelle had “replaced” Candice Brathwaite as the host of a documentary on black women and childbirth.
Candice initially said she was “gutted” to learn that she wasn’t going to be hosting the documentary.
However, she later backtracked and claimed that she was “never in the running” to host the documentary.
When it was announced that Rochelle would be hosting the show, there was widespread backlash.
Many insisted that Candice was more deserving of hosting the documentary. A conversation about colourism arose from the row.
What did Rochelle say about the backlash?
Rochelle spoke about the backlash she received during an appearance on The Diary of a CEO podcast.
And she revealed her fears for her family after receiving the threats.
“I didn’t want to make it about me,” she said. “I didn’t want to make it about the fact that actually I was scared to take my kid to nursery that day because I got death threats.”
She then said that it got so bad that her husband, Marvin Humes, took her phone off her.
“I turned everything off, I turned off comments and then I was like I’m not dealing with this, I’m just going to live my life and I literally cried for 48 hours and was devastated,” she continued.
Rochelle said that after it was announced she would be fronting the show, she heard about what Candice had been saying.
“I’d woken up to and seen this post and was mortified,” she revealed.
What else did Rochelle say?
Rochelle then went on to say that she had reached out to Candice after seeing her post.
“She was a darker-skinned black woman. The first thing I did was DM her: ‘This is my number, I don’t know what [bleep] has gone down here but this is my number, give me a call.’ To this day I’ve not heard from her,” she said.
“Then that sort of triggered this whole conversation of the fact that I’d taken a darker-skinned woman’s bread and the dial switched overnight and I was beside myself, devastated.”
Rochelle went on to say that she decided not to get involved with the debate. She said she just let it develop, even though it was a “hard pill to swallow”.
She continued, saying: “It sort of snowballed into this chat and colourism most definitely exists, I’m aware of that. I might be lighter than one woman but I’m definitely darker than some.
“If I spoke on it the noise would have just kept snowballing out of control.”
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The Hit List is on BBC One Saturday September 7 at 6.20pm.
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