Rochelle Humes has revealed she received death threats for hosting the Channel 4 documentary The Black Maternity Scandal last year.
The former Saturdays singer presented the Dispatches episode in March 2021, exploring why Black women in the UK have higher mortality rates during and after childbirth compared to white women.
However, when Rochelle was announced as host, she received backlash as many considered her not to be a prominent voice on the issue.
The criticism heightened amid claims that Candice Braithwaite, who has written books about Black maternity mortality, was originally in talks to host the episode but it was later clarified that this was for another project.
Reflecting on the backlash, Rochelle said on Steven Barlett’s The Diary of a CEO podcast this week: ‘I didn’t want to make it about me. 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.
‘Marvin [Humes, her husband] did take my phone off me though, I love my phone at the weekend, he was like “that’s going off” and he literally texted everybody that works with me and was like if you need her I’m here but no more phone.’
Rochelle, 32, said she ‘cried for 48 hours’ and was ‘devastated’ at the reaction to her involvement.
The This Morning star revealed she was ‘mortified’ when she saw Candice’s Instagram post claiming she had been asked to present the documentary.