Janet Street-Porter spoke up about the harassment she endured throughout her early career, including being insulted for her accent.
The 76-year-old Loose Women panellist said on Monday’s lunchtime episode that she was called names by her male colleagues.
Her experiences occurred during a segment on unpleasant comments, in which each panellist described a time when they had been greeted with cruel words.
The redhead TV star shared her experience, claiming that she was abused and stigmatised as “common” because of the way she talked.
‘When I started as a journalist and went on the radio in 1971, the outcry over my accent was preposterous,’ Janet remarked on ITV’s afternoon show.
‘I had all these blokes, posh white blokes of a certain age, saying I sounded common, I was unintelligent.
‘I was, you know, I should be ‘put down’, one man said if he saw me crossing the road he would run me over.
‘And it really had an impact on me.’
She has previously commented about remarks she had gotten regarding her accent and revealed on the show in 2020: ‘I’ve had individuals come up to me in a store or anything and replicate my accent to my face.
‘They say ‘my daughter does a really good you’ and then some person is brought up and does me and it’s not very funny at all.’
Coleen Nolan, another presenter, revealed that after being picked up as a youngster, she acquired a phobia about her “heaviness.”
The former musical sensation went on to say that she doesn’t let anybody lift her as a result of being branded ‘heavy’ as a child, and she gave other examples of how the harsh comments had crept into her adult life.
She stated that it took her a long time to let her partner to lift her when they practised routines for the ice dancing competition event on Dancing On Ice.
Coleen said she wouldn’t let Stuart Widdall hoist her over his head because she was afraid she’d be too heavy for him to bear.
Loose Women airs weekdays at 12.30pm on ITV.
Source My Celebrity Life.