Emily Atack forced to call police after receiving terrifying rape threats online

EMILY Atack called police after an online stalker threatened to harm her at home.

The I’m A Celebrity star hit out at vile sex trolls to raise awareness of the issue after revealing she has also been sent rape threats.

Emily, 32, said: “They knew where I lived, said what they were going to do to me, even my family. I got the police involved.”

She has bravely spoken out about the terrifying rape threats and vile X-rated abuse she receives online.

The popular star, an ardent campaigner against cyberflashing, has had to move home four times in the wake of targeted abuse.

Now Emily, 32, is calling for social media companies to clamp down on X-rated comments after revealing that she is sent pornographic material by married family men — and even grandads.

In an emotional interview with The Sun on Sunday, she says: “I’ve had people commenting on my body, my face, my hair, calling me fat, an untalented piece of s***, annoying, whatever, my whole life.

“I’ve developed quite a thick skin. But when I started getting actual rape threats, and felt my safety was in jeopardy, it became too much.

“I get videos of men self-pleasuring, awful photos of things I can’t describe, every day.

“I have this one particular guy who constantly abuses me and every time I block him, he creates a new account.

“He’s relentless and disgusting — beyond anything you can imagine. Yet he says he’s a married man with children.

“He says when he’s having sex with his wife he’s thinking about me.

“He sends rape threats, says what he wants to do to me while his wife is in the room, and sends messages saying his children are downstairs in their playroom while he’s pleasuring himself over me.

“These men are exposing themselves to me, doing this, in a more private way, in my direct messages, where I can’t avoid it. It feels shameful.

“It has made me question my entire existence at times, and how men see me.”

Emily says the cyberflashing — the sending of explicit pictures and videos to someone either online or via a mobile device — began to ramp up during the first lockdown.

After writing an article about some of her experiences, she was widely praised for speaking out.

However she says that “some men, even some women” thought she “deserved to be treated like this because I’d posed in lads’ mags before and talked openly about my sex life”.

The reaction has “really spurred me on to educate people — more people need to understand that that’s just not right”.

In 2008 Emily became an overnight sensation — and a poster girl for teenage boys across the land — playing Charlotte “Big Jugs” Hinchcliffe in The Inbetweeners.

Four years ago she turned into a household name after a successful stint in I’m A Celebrity.

Fans fell in love with her down-to-earth nature, as she happily roamed the jungle make-up free.

I have this one particular guy who constantly abuses me and every time I block him, he creates a new account. He’s relentless and disgusting — beyond anything you can imagine. Yet he says he’s a married man with children.

She came second to Harry Redknapp in what was a vintage year for the show.

But since then, a minority of men have aggressively abused her good nature — sending her unsolicited videos of themselves self-pleasuring, and horrific, sexually explicit direct messages on her social media.

She gets around 200 a day.

Emily says: “People say, ‘Well just don’t go into your DMs’ but that isn’t solving the problem.

“I need to go into that part of my DMs because otherwise I miss important messages from branding companies, or genuinely lovely, deserving fans who I want to connect with as it’s part of my job, and I want to.

“I should be able to go into my DMs — that’s my private domain that is benign, I’m being bombarded with assault.

“It is assault and abuse. I should have the right to be able to go in there safely. More needs to be done to protect women.”

She is speaking from her home in central London, where the comedian is currently preparing for the third series of her brilliant The Emily Atack Show — “a show where I can reclaim my own narrative”.

And she says she is now keen to “explore an investigation or documentary” about cyberflashing.

She adds: “Women have had to deal with this our whole lives. We’re not f***ing asking for it.

“The whole point I’m trying to stress is that our online lives now are just as important as our physical lives.

“The internet is such a powerful place and we use it as much as we use our roads and our streets and our shops — we go online more than we go into the office.

Women have had to deal with this our whole lives. We’re not f***ing asking for it.

“If we are living in a world where the internet is just as used as our physical lifestyle it has to be treated in that way. It has to be patrolled better.”

A recent poll showed 48 per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds have received an unsolicited sexual photo.

In November Emily — genuinely one of the nicest women in showbiz — spoke passionately in Parliament about proposed changes to the Online Harms Bill.

She helped ensure it would become illegal to “sext” victims.

The Government has changed legislation to ensure offenders can be jailed for up to two years.

Despite this, little appears to have changed. Emily’s mental health continues to suffer as more and more abuse pours in — she has regular therapy to help — and, shockingly, she still feels unsafe in her own home.

She sighs: “That’s the reason I move house all the time. I move house constantly. I’m always kind of giving excuses: ‘the oven’s broken, I’m off’.

“But deep down — and I don’t want to keep banging this single drum — I definitely fear for my safety maybe more so than someone who was in a relationship, who has a partner, or even someone who lives with flatmates.

“I even considered living with flatmates again and maybe it would help, maybe I will, but again it’s not solving the problem. It’s taking away my right to live freely.

“There was this one time, things were really really bad, and I did involve the police.  It was quite stalker-ish — this person saying they knew where I lived, saying what they were going to do to me, even my family.

“I got the police involved and it was the last time. To be fair the police tried to be helpful, they cared, but they hit a dead end because they aren’t allowed access to IP addresses and Twitter,  etcetera, won’t give them out.

“So I just lost — you put your faith in the police, the people who are supposed to protect you, but I just lost faith in that system. There’s only so much they can do.

I got the police involved and it was the last time. To be fair the police tried to be helpful, they cared, but they hit a dead end because they aren’t allowed access to IP addresses and Twitter, etcetera, won’t give them out.

“I vent to my sister and my mum, but actually I’ve stopped doing that because I feel like the people that care about you don’t want to hear it.

“It’s upsetting and it upsets people so I suffer in silence a bit.”

On a lighter note, today Emily jets off Stateside to film a new BBC2 series, Trailblazers, alongside Mel B and Ruby Wax.

The unlikely trio will retrace the travels of 19th-century female explorer Isabella Bird. Emily cannot wait to get going — and it will doubtless prove a welcome distraction from her digital life.

She concludes: “My mental health has taken a massive battering with it all, I can’t lie.

“What I’m realising as I get older is the impact of how certain men have treated me has really had a very damaging impact.

“You don’t want to blame, but it’s that sense of shame. I don’t want to sit here and say men have f***ed me up — there’s also been an amazing impact from all the good men in my life — but the negative impact is something I’m now seeing in my thirties.

“The devastation it’s left — the uncertainty of where I stand with men, how they perceive me.

“I feel like I’ve always thought that I’ve had to be a certain way around men, look a certain way and behave a certain way and I think a lot of the root of my problems stem from here.

“It’s something I’m addressing and in speaking out now, I just hope I can stop even one man from sending an awful, sexual message.

“Even protecting one woman out there will mean I’ve done some good.”