Good Morning Britain host Adil Ray has opened up on how he has been targeted with horrifying racial abuse as the show discussed the rise in racial hate

Good Morning Britain star Adil Ray has opened up about the horrifying racist abuse he has received. The ITV show – which was fronted by Adil and his co-star Kate Garraway this morning – when they discussed the rise in racism.

Speaking on the show, Adil revealed he had been threatened by racist social media trolls and recalled how one woman messaged him just yesterday to share her own harrowing experience.

He shared: “Lots of messages I’ve been getting – this migrant issue is being talked about enough. We have to remember that the vast majority of these asylum seekers will be Muslim, they’re coming from Muslim countries. We’re seeing a rise in anti-Muslim hate crime.” Kate then said to Adil: “You’ve experienced it?”

“I’ve experienced it, I’ve had people DM me on Instagram, talk about remigration. I’ve had threats to watch myself on the streets. Senior politicians have had violent threats. Muslim politicians have had violent threats against them,” he added.

He said: “A woman messaged me yesterday and said in her town she received racial abuse as a Muslim woman and was scared to go out. People who work here, and several friends of theirs who are Muslim, don’t want to go to the mosque anymore.

“This is horrendous. Mosques, we know, have been attacked … The thing that strikes me about this is no one seems to be talking about it. These are anti-Muslim hate crimes. There doesn’t seem to be any politician that’s standing up and reassuring millions of Muslims in this country that the country is behind them. It’s been going on for weeks now and that’s deeply concerning.”

Adil Ray and Kate Garraway present Good Morning Britain together regularly (
Image:
ITV)
It comes after Adil shut down the “nonsense” trolling that his co-stars including Alex Beresford, Sean Fletcher and Ranvir Singh are subjected to every time they present on the ITV breakfast show.

He was speaking to historian David Olusoga about how the historian had been left clinically depressed by the racism he had faced. Addressing the subject, Adil said: “There have been changes on-screen and we recognise that – I mean, we’re here right now. “Even though it’s not permanent jobs, things have definitely changed.”

Adil’s co-host Ranvir Singh then added: “You do get trolled for it – you get a lot of Twitter nonsense. “You were reading out a lot this morning, I don’t know if you want to go into it.”

Adil replied: “Oh we do get trolled for it. I don’t want to go into it, but I know Alex Beresford and Sean Fletcher got it last week. We are part of the change. We do get grief on television, it’s part of the job.

“But what I’ve done over the past seven weeks on this show, is concentrate on the amount of love. I spend less time on social media and just learnt to ignore the minority views and embrace the love.”

Adil revealed in the past that his comedy show Citizen Khan had more than 700 complaints and he was accused of “making fun of Islam and stereotyping Asians”. He shared at the time: “I had death threats and to this day receive abuse on social media; namely, that I’m an ‘Uncle Tom.’ All comedy relies to some extent on big characters and stereotype.”