The Abuse Lily Allen Faces Online Has Become Truly Disgusting

Because she expresses support for minority groups and shares frank views about Brexit, Lily Allen is no stranger to dealing with Twitter trolls. This week, the abuse she regularly faces online became truly disgusting. After the singer-songwriter tried to highlight the prejudice encountered by immigrants and Muslims by replacing the words "immigrants" or "Muslims" with "pensioners" in a series of tweets, trolls taunted her by saying she has a mental illness. This prompted Allen to reveal that she has bipolar disorder and had experienced post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after her baby had been stillborn. According to the BBC, one troll told her that if she hadn't taken drugs, "you wouldn't have miscarried." Another troll tweeted at Allen, sickeningly, "The baby knew you were going to be such a horrible mother." Allen then replied, with heartbreaking honesty: "I didn't miscarry, I went into early labour and my son died from his chord wrapped round his neck."

Allen, who released her last album Sheezus in 2014, has since told fans that she is taking a break from Twitter because "my timeline is full of the most disgusting, sexist, misogynistic, racist shit." A friend is currently running her account and has promised to block trolls who continue to taunt her.

Stella Creasy, the Labour Co-Operative MP for Walthamstow, summarised this horrifying situation perfectly by tweeting: "Just checked twitter and seen crap being thrown at @lilyallen. Unbelievable. Unacceptable. Unlawful."