This Morning host Ben Shephard has defended Gemma Atkinson following the backlash she’s faced over allegedly ‘pinching’ her young son.
Actress Gemma ruffled a few feathers earlier this week when she took to social media to talk about the differences between her two children – son Thiago, one, and daughter Mia, four. The TV star explained how she’s been teaching Thiago to stop pinching his sister.
And on Wednesday (October 2) Gemma was defended by her pal Ben Shephard after she caused a stir with her method.
Gemma Atkinson defended by This Morning star Ben
Earlier this week, Gemma took to her Instagram Story to discuss the differences between her daughter Mia and son Thiago.
“Really noticing the differences in how Mia was to Thiago. It’s fun to watch. Toys are just banged or slid across the floor and the tantrums are new as Mia didn’t have them,” she said.
“He pretend cries and throws himself on the floor. I stand and watch until he realises it’s getting him nowhere and they are slowly getting shorter. He pinches when he gets frustrated. I did it back to him on Wednesday as he did it hard to Mia. He’s not done it since.”
Ben calls Gemma Atkinson ‘good friend’
Gemma’s comment got plenty of people talking. And on This Morning on Wednesday (October 2), Gemma was defended by co-host Ben.
“Good friend of mine Gemma Atkinson has created quite a stir,” Ben said, before explaining the situation.
He then went on: “It was a very different era when we were being brought up. Smacking was certainly very prevalent in my house.”
‘Gemma is going to be careful about it’
Ben added: “Until it got to the age where it became quite funny. Because it didn’t hurt and my mum couldn’t catch me.”
Defending his pal, Ben said: “But the reality is, trying to explain to a small child the importance of not doing stuff like that, doing it in a safe way and not a painful way, and clearly Gemma is going to be careful about this, can be much more instructive than trying to use words.”
Gemma responds to backlash
Gemma herself addressed the backlash and fired back at the critics. On Tuesday (October 1) she said: “I was on the radio tonight, and my agent emailed me. Well, she sent me an email from a journalist from the Daily Fail. Says it all.”
Gemma recited the email: “I’m writing a story on Gemma Atkinson, saying she’s done an Instagram post about pinching her son, but she’s removed the post because she’s been slammed. She hosts a podcast called Mum’s The Word and hosts a show on CBeebies.”
She then explained to her followers that she wasn’t actually the host of Mum’s The Word, and hadn’t worked on CBeebies for a while either. The TV star then said that the post about her son was on her Instagram Story, so it “deletes itself after 24 hours”.
Gemma denies pinching son
Gemma then denied she’d pinched her son. She said she had simply mimicked it while she was telling him off for hurting his sister.
She said: “As if I would,” before sharing her frustration over the journalist going ahead with their intended story. Gemma sighed: “Everything’s wrong and they’ve still written it! Oh, come on.”
She then followed up with another post, joking: “I better go get Thiago out of the car, he’s been in there for about three hours. Window’s down though, so he’ll be alright won’t he? He’s fine on the drive, I’m sure… good night.”
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