One of Great Britain’s best known xenophobes has been forced to sell her house after losing a major defamation case. And inevitably, a crowdsourcing campaign has sprung up to try and raise enough money to buy it, and then gift it to an organisation to house… you guessed it, refugees.
It’s a well-worn path. Someone achieves fame via reality television. They turn out to be a redneck, and disgrace themselves publicly. Repeatedly.
Introducing Britain’s Katie Hopkins, who first came to prominence in 2007 after appearing on the British version of The Apprentice.
Courtesy of a particular hatred for migrants and asylum seekers – whom she describes as “cockroaches” and “feral humans” – Hopkins soon found herself a darling of the British press. In the past decade, Hopkins has appeared on and worked for most of the major networks, including the BBC, and was given a column for the odious MailOnline, along with The Sun.
And then gradually, as she continued to spew hate everywhere, it inevitably led to this headline in the UK Independent: Katie Hopkins has just written a piece so hateful that it might give Hitler pause – why was it published?
The answer to that question is simple: Mainstream media in Britain has the same problem as mainstream media in Australia… they don’t hate naked bigotry as much as they hate not getting traffic to their site (see The Age and Herald Sun’s coverage of African youths in Melbourne for more local examples). Because clickbait.
Having created Hopkins, the media is now feasting on her rotting corpse. And still getting the clicks. But as you might expect, people who find fame on the back of their ignorance, aren’t necessarily interested in facts and so Hopkins is getting plenty of other attention as well. Of the legal variety.
From Hopkins’ Wikipedia page: “In 2016, Mail Online was forced to pay £150,000 to a Muslim family whom Hopkins had falsely accused of extremist links; and in a 2017 libel case, Hopkins was personally required to pay £24,000 in damages and £107,000 in legal costs to Jack Monroe after making defamatory remarks on Twitter. Later in 2017, Mail Online was forced to pay substantial damages and legal costs to a teacher about whom Hopkins had made false claims.”
It’s the Monroe legal case that has finally led to her apparent financial downfall.
Last year, Hopkins used her Twitter account – which has over 800,000 followers – to attack Monroe, a journalist and activist: “Scrawled on any memorials recently? Vandalised the memory of those who fought for your freedom. Grandma got any more medals?
Here’s Monroe’s reply: “I have NEVER ‘scrawled on a memorial’. Brother in the RAF. Dad was a Para in the Falklands. You’re a piece of s***”
Hopkins admitted the error, Monroe demanded an apology, Hopkins refused, and then upped the ante by referring to Monroe as “social anthrax”.
So Monroe sued, and won. And now Hopkins is up for damages and costs in the hundreds of thousands… and that’s just Monroe’s costs. Hopkins will have her own legal bills to pay as well.
In order to fund the loss, Hopkins has put her London home up for sale. Enter a left-wing wag, a Swindon resident named Scott Walker, who has started a GoFundMe page to try and raise the funds to buy the house.
“Katie Hopkins has been forced to put her £1m mansion up for sale after losing a highly expensive libel case. We all know Hopkins’s disgusting views on immigrants and refugees, so the plan my good people, is to buy Katie Hopkins family home and use it to either house refugees or asylum seekers.”
At the time of press, Hopkin’s house was listed as “Sold Subject to Contract”, which means it’s technically still for sale. So if you’re going to help buy it, get in quick.
And as an interesting aside, Hopkins’ most recent tweet – posted yesterday – comes to the aid of Australia’s most famous fake Shiekh, ‘Imam Tawhidi’, who’s been the subject of a few New Matilda articles of late (and one defamation threat from Channel 7’s Today Tonight).
I think you’ll find targeted harassment is perfectly acceptable if directed against the right. https://t.co/qx2FXN75tU
— Katie Hopkins (@KTHopkins) January 22, 2018
Some lessons are harder learned – and some media-created celebrities are apparently dumber – than others.
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