Rachel Riley apologises over ‘misunderstandings’ after Channel 4 urged to sack presenter following ‘Islamophobic’ remarks

34 comments

1. It wasn’t a ‘misunderstanding’. She jumped the gun, presumably after seeing stills of the attacker. And she wasn’t the only one.

2. Somethings not quite right about her. Just got that madness, like someone who’s experienced trauma. Like if you put them in an empty room for an hour they’d alternate between crying and laughing. 

   When she talks about Isreal it’s uncanny how ‘religious’ her opinions sound despite having no religious content. 

3. She was told to complain by her peers and support network aka megaphoners. Yes it backfired on her, but she’s paid well, and that’s the price she pays for being the face of those groups

   Fortunately for her she can take the hit.

   Still, she is a bit bat shit crazy doing it, but again that’s the road she’s chosen.

4. It’s not just this tweet that’s an issue, it’s almost all of her tweets. Full of unverified biased crap. Channel 4 is not the place for her. More like GB news.

5. >‘At the time we did not know who the attacker was, and as such I made no reference.’
   >
   >‘My aim was to highlight the weekly calls for “intifada” being tolerated in London and around the world, which in actuality means violence on our streets.’

   So her claim is that she had no idea what had happened beyond an attack but decided to use the tragedy and victims to push her own message on a topic that she had no indication was even linked. She just saw that people were dead and thought: ‘I’ll use their suffering to spread misinformation and further inflame tensions around Israel-Palestine’?

   Is that better or worse than just being a racist?

6. Sack her. She used to be funny and cringey which was a reasonable combination and she added some mirth to an otherwise stodgy Countdown.

   Now she’s just cringey.

   She has far more in common with old racist coffin dodgers who’ve nothing better to do in the middle of the day except yell at the TV and ogle her, than she’d probably like.

7. Her initial tweet:
   > If you want to know what “Globalise the Intifada” means, see the Sydney Mall.

   Her clarification:
   > …my intention with this tweet was not to say this attack was caused by any ideation or to link it to Islamic extremism.

   Er…

8. She’s a malicious troll who cries anti-semitism but has no problem spewing hate against Muslims and Palestinians. She conflates and she smears.

9. She’s sick in the head and should not be given a platform. 2 Pakistanis died in the Bondi stabbings too. It’s a horrible tragedy but to have this malicious paid troll writing nonsense when people are having to bury their innocent relatives is pathetic.

10. People need to stop coming to such crass conclusions.

11. She’s unhinged or a cvnt not sure which. Imagine trying to score points over a tragedy like this.

12. For eye candy on a game show she sure is loud with her opinions.

13. Even if she’s fired, geebie beebies will have her for racist crossword or something

14. I mean, that’s not really an apology is it? She’s essentially doubled down on “what about…”

15. That’s decent of her, but she really should’ve waited until the facts were available before tweeting anyway.

16. About time they fucked her off. For an intelligent person she sure spouts some stupid shit.

17. She went off the deep end a few years ago, but I guess it’s good to see people finally starting to acknowledge it.

18. Her ‘apology’ is completely embarrassing. Blames others for ‘misunderstanding’ her words, which were very clear in their intent.

    Even if you take the apology at face value, her aim was to ignore the deaths of civilians who aren’t even cold in the ground to get us to focus on her.

19. Everyone needs to get off Twitter. That thing does something to people.

    I completely quit about a year ago, then went back recently to try and find some news stuff and the effect of logging back in was like opening a bin containing hot, radioactive diarrhoea which I had to sift through as quickly as possible to find what I needed before slamming the lid shut. lt was bad enough when i used to be able to filter that out by blocking and muting liberally, but that doesn’t seem to work anymore.

    Everyone comes across as just so angry. There’s no benefit of the doubt, no attempt to find common ground, everyone rushes to conclusions, there’s *so much* racism on the platform. I could go on.

20. Not keen on Rachel she seems to be strongly pro the Israeli attacks with no sympathy at all for the Palestinian people. I remember she went after Jeremy Corbyn the other year as well calling him a racist when he clearly wasn’t ..I appreciate that a lot of people disliked Corbyn and / or his policies which is absolutely fair enough but to smear someone like that isn’t right. Just checked her twitter account and then went to susie dent’s. Much prefer Susie with her tweets about rude words and promoting guide dog charities.

21. Provided the ratings don’t change or advertisers dont complain then Riley isn’t going anywhere, she’s a fool who peddled nonsense but unless you follow her Twitter account those complaining are just pearl clutchers perpetuating outrage culture. You could always not watch countdown, but as the average countdown viewer is 65+ and doesn’t view Twitter I doubt they’ll care all that much.

22. Hopefully we’ll have seen the last of her. Spends too much time spreading misinformation rather than doing her actual job of mathematics.

23. Seems she’s forgotten her remit. That stuff around Corbyn and Labour went right to her head and she thinks she’s some kind of political influencer. All she had to do was look pretty and do maths quickly. Easiest gig on tv and here we are.

24. Given the stink she kicked up over certain people’s alleged antisemitism, I see no issue with people doing the same to her over her anti-Islamic stance.

25. Rachel Riley still spouting right wing racist shit. Honestly she’s vile.

26. Sack her, she’s has the brain rot for a while now and British broadcasters should consider their fiduciary responsibility to generate profit which her being on air will harm.

27. She’s a nasty bit of work and isn’t worth the hassle. You can swing a cat in Cambridge and get 50 or 60 maths graduates who could do what she does.

    Most people saw this event and were sick at the thought of what happened, knowing it could easily be us. She saw it as an opportunity to push an agenda (which she was wrong about) and is now doubling down.

    Sack her. Go on channel 4, you guys are the cool ones…

28. Ironic considering she’s spent years very publicly calling anyone challenging apartheid and ethnic cleansing racist.

29. She’s been a psycho twat for a few years now needs bringing down a peg or two 

30. Phwoar! I’d subtract her nickers and show my workings with her divide.

31. From all the comments… I can’t figure out if the perp was a Jew or a Muslim. I *would* say Christian as well; but then again stabbing rules out the Christians because of the arthritis.

32. Don’t sack her. We don’t need yet another right wing outrage eternal victim grifter out there stinking everything up.

33. She’s not sorry. She’s probably been spoken to by the heads of C4 and realised her Countdown career is in jeopardy.

34. Fuck. This. Scumbag.

    You know damn well if things were the other way around, she’d be crying antisemitism but when she does this shit, it’s a misunderstanding? And how many misunderstandings does she get because this isn’t a one time thing