Celebrity Traitors star Romesh Ranganathan has revealed that his wife Leesa has been subjected to cruel racist abuse from online trolls, leaving her ‘incredibly upset’
Romesh Ranganathan has revealed his wife has been targeted with vile racist abuse. His wife, Leesa, has been branded a “racist traitor” for marrying the comedian.
Romsesh, 48, is currently appearing on the BBC One programme, which airs episode nine tonight ahead of tomorrow’s nailbiting final. However, while Romesh has been praised by his co-stars for his strong sense of sniffing out possible wrongdoings, his family have now been subjected to abuse.
This, sadly, isn’t out of the ordinary for Romesh, who said he receives racist messages on a daily basis. But now, his wife, Leesa, has been targeted on her Instagram page.
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He added: “My wife, Leesa, someone messaged her on Instagram and said, ‘You are a race traitor because you married one of them. You are no longer welcome among the whites. She was incredibly upset, and I said, ‘Here’s my advice: look at our house. You’ve come over to the dark side, and it’s working pretty f***ing well for you. Cry those tears into the swimming pool.'”
Romesh says he feels bad, despite knowing it’s not his fault. “I am the reason that Leesa received that message. She is upset now because she is married to me. That’s not a nice thing to contend with.”
He added that had Leesa been married to a “white guy”, she wouldn’t be subjected to such abuse. But keeping in line with his comedy career, Romesh joked: “She also wouldn’t have a pool.”
His sons, Alex, Theo and Charlie, have also been subjected to racist abuse growing up. Speaking to his Wolf and Owl podcast co-host, Tom Davis, he said: “Not loads, not as much as I did, but they have had comments.
“We had a bit of an incident. One of the kids was chatting to a girl, just some friend at school, and one of the other kids said, ‘I don’t know why you’re bothering to chat to her. You’re going to end up marrying your cousin.'” Alex, however, has been subjected to having the P-word said to him at school.
The comic said some blame fell with the parents, saying: “At a certain point you’ve got to go ‘They’re obviously hearing that at home’. So whenever I see that or I hear that a kid’s done it, the next time I see their parents I’m thinking ‘you’re racist’, right? And that’s a horrible thing.”
He added that while “racism is horrible and abhorrent,” he thinks it’s a “it’s a mistake to supercharge it”. He added: “What I mean by that is if somebody calls you a racial slur and it immediately ignites you, it gives that person power over you. I’m not saying you shouldn’t react to racism, but I’m saying that immediately leading you to be violent is not something I want my kids to do.” Romesh’s mum, Shanthi, moved from Sri Lanka to Crawley aged just 19, with his late dad, Ranga.
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