Myleene Klass has detailed the horrific racial abuse she experienced in her childhood and the prevalent prejudice she still witnesses.
The songstress, who was born in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, to an Austrian father and a Filipino mother, took to Instagram on Wednesday morning to reveal she is struggling to explain racism to her children amid the Black Lives Matter movement.
In her impassioned post, the star, 42, listed some of the horrendous slurs she has faced over the years, with a shocking list reading: ‘Chink. Slit eye. Number 69, Fried rice. Mongrel. Ping pong. Slut. All Tai girls are sluts. Banana’.
Shocking: Myleene Klass has detailed the horrific racial abuse she experienced in her childhood and the prevalent prejudice she still witnesses
Myleene is mother to Ava, 12, Hero, nine, from her relationship with her ex Graham Quinn and Apollo, 10 months, with her current partner Simon Motson.
Amid the Black Lives Matter movement and the aftermath of the death of George Floyd, the star revealed she is trying to educate her kids.
Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, died last Monday after a white police officer knelt on his head for nearly nine minutes in Minneapolis, prompting a wave of protests.
Discussing her own experiences – yet conceding she cannot understand the struggles in the US – Myleene shared the lengthy caption beneath a childhood snap.
Heartfelt: The songstress, who was born in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, to an Austrian father and a Filipino mother, took to Instagram on Wednesday morning to reveal she is struggling to explain racism to her children amid the Black Lives Matter movement
Great loss: The movement comes after the death of African-American George Floyd, 46, last week, who passed away after Minneapolis policeman Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for several minutes before he died from asphyxiation
The star attended Notre Dame High School, Norwich, but transferred to the Cliff Park Ormiston Academy in Gorleston-on-Sea, to complete secondary school.
Myleene opened the post with explaining what she is working to do by revealing the struggles she has faced in her past. She wrote: ‘I’m trying so hard to explain the complexities of racism to my children. How it happens…
‘How whilst I don’t understand the struggles a black person living in America might be experiencing, how I do understand and know my own experience of being a mixed race Filipino girl growing up in Norfolk…
Alarming: She went on to detail the ongoing racism she faces in her own area, as she explained: ‘In the area I live now, ‘get a Filipino’ is bandied around so easily when referring to getting a nanny
‘I had those words thrown at me. On other occasions, it wasn’t just words, it was rock filled snowballs by a group of boys as I walked home, I had my hair cut in the school cloakrooms by some girls, later they threatened a lighter…
‘There was spitting. Why does your mum speak like that? Why don’t you have an accent? ‘I was born here. Yeah, but you don’t belong here’…
‘I also remember the pride and relief I felt when a bus of school children, aged 10 pulled up next to my own bus and the children opposite all started making ‘Chinese eyes and buck teeth’ to then have my own bus retaliate with fist signs and fingers…
Sweet: Myleene is mother to Ava, 12, Hero, nine, from her relationship with her ex Graham Quinn and Apollo, 10 months, with her current partner Simon Motson
‘It was small ‘victory’, I felt embarrassed, hot, shamed but I remember it so well because for the first time, I didn’t feel alone, I had a small token of solidarity that gave me courage’.
Speaking about her experiences at college, she went on: ‘At college, I walked into the canteen only to have a group of students hand me their trays loaded up with dirty plates. You’re Filipino, you’re all cleaners right? Then the laughter.’
She went on to detail the ongoing racism she faces in her own area, as she explained: ‘In the area I live now, ‘get a Filipino’ is bandied around so easily when referring to getting a nanny, they don’t even realise they’re talking about a person, an actual person…
Open and honest: Speaking about how she is now living with and addressing the issues, she went on: ‘The world looks different now. I am mixed race and I am so proud of that’
‘A woman who will likely have sacrificed being with her own children for years to raise your snotty kids. Another popular quote… ‘We love our Filipino nanny (still no name), she’s like family, we send her home every year for Xmas’…
‘Not doing a sister out of a job, but she’s not your pet and she has a name.’
Speaking about how she is now living with and addressing the issues, she went on: ‘The world looks different now. I am mixed race and I am so proud of that…
‘Growing up in Norfolk, there wasn’t much visibility as to what a girl like me could aspire to be. I was surrounded by incredible, selfless nurses and those in service (the same who are tending our covid patients and dropping like flies’