Good Morning Britain fans have criticised Richard Madeley for his “insensitive” comments after Ranvir Singh broke down on the show.
The presenters – including Susanna Reid and Andi Peters – were discussing the vile racist abuse experienced by England players after they lost out on the top prize at the Euros over the weekend, when Richard made the comment.
In the chat, Susanna admitted it “broke her heart” to see the abuse the players had received.
“It breaks my heart. My children saw it yesterday. It’s disgusting. It’s absolutely unacceptable that that had got through any social media filter,” she said.
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“The reports from social media companies that say they take it down immediately is just rubbish. It hurts me as a mum that my children and my children’s friends are seeing it.”
And Andi agreed, revealing that seeing the abuse first hand had made him feel “quite emotional”.
“We’ve all spent the last month willing on our team – our team – to do so well, so yesterday when I watched the show I didn’t realise this [racial abuse] was happening so I went online and had a look and genuinely for the first time ever, I was quite emotional,” he said during the discussion.
‘”How a 19 year old boy who has done everything for his country can be abused online by people he doesn’t know. I pray that he never sees what was online yesterday.”
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Ranvir got teary as she discussed her own family’s experience with racism.
She said: “It goes to the heart of my children, my son has talked about the racism that he’s faced … you think about it all the time. You’re privileged if you don’t have to think about it. If you don’t have to think about it until one of your heroes is suffering – that’s the difference in privilege.
“Andi walks around with it all the time – you can’t shake it off. You can act like you’re functioning normally but all the time it’s there. Now we need to remove that privilege and we all need to think about it regardless of what skin we walk in.”
As she broke down, it was then when Richard made the heavily-criticised comment.
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He told her: “Now look here Ranvir, you’ve got to read the news. Dry your eyes.”
However, his suggestion didn’t go well with the show’s fans who fumed at him on Twitter.
One wrote: “Absolutely appalled at how insensitive @richardm56 is here. ‘You’ve got to read the news, dry your eyes.'”
“@GMB get rid of Richard Madeley! @ranvir01 truly emotional talking about racism and he says “dry your eyes you’ve got to read the news”!! Unbelievable! #gmb,” another added.
A third shared: “Quite a moment on live TV there as @ranvir01 breaks down discussing the vile racist abuse that’s been thrown about. @richardm56 ‘Wipe your eyes, you’ve got the news to read” Come on Richard….’THINK’ @GMB @susannareid100.”