Clive Myrie reveals shocking extent of racial abuse faced as BBC newsreader

Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter for all the latest entertainment news and reviews Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Clive Myrie has revealed details of the death threats he has received, including messages “talking about the kind of bullet that he’d use in the gun to kill me”. Speaking to Lauren Laverne in a new edition of Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, Myrie, 59, opened up about an unexpected pitfall of becoming more “visible” to audiences: racial abuse and death threats. Myrie said he had received faeces and “cards in the post with gorillas on”, as well as emails that read: “You shouldn’t be on our TV; you dress like a pimp.” Though Myrie has been at the BBC since the 1980s, the journalist and presenter has steadily become more of a familiar face on the network with high-profile presenting roles such as leading Mastermind since 2021. So thought, ‘Oh my God, what, if anything, might this person have been planning?’” open image in gallery Clive Myrie ‘shaken’ after death threats detailed type of bullet ‘to kill me’ Myrie, who was born to Jamaican parents in Farnworth, near Bolton, also spoke at the Hay Festival last month about this harrowing experience.