BBC presenter Clive Myrie left ‘shaken’ by death threats and racist abuse
BBC presenter Clive Myrie has said he was left “shaken” after an individual with past firearms convictions sent him a death threat detailing the type of bullet they’d use to kill him.
Mr Myrie, 59, has been subject to multiple death threats during his career, as well as receiving abusive post including faeces and racist cards.
The acclaimed broadcaster and journalist said that he had received more racial hatred since becoming a more prominent and “visible” television presenter.
During an interview with Lauren Laverne on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, he said he had been sent faeces and “cards in the post with gorillas on”. He said he had also received abusive emails, one of which read: “You shouldn’t be on our TV; you dress like a pimp”.
“But one chap issued death threats, and he was tracked down and prosecuted, and his death threats involved talking about the kind of bullet that he’d use in the gun to kill me and this kind of stuff,” Myrie said.
“I was shaken for a while after I’d been told. I thought it’s just someone showboating. It’s just bravado.
“And then they tracked down this character, and it turned out that he had previous convictions for firearms offences. So (I) thought, ‘Oh my God, what, if anything, might this person have been planning?’.”
The news anchor and Mastermind host will lead the BBC’s election night coverage on July 4, alongside Laura Kuenssberg.
Myrie admitted the job was “a lot of pressure”.
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He told Ms Laverne: “There’s nervous energy there as well, which is wonderful. I’ve never presented an election programme in the UK before. I’m getting my head around a lot of statistics.
“But you know, we want to try and make it fun too; it is not just going to be a night for geeks. I hope it’s not just a night for political geeks.
“I want people to be able to tune in and get a sense of where this country is going and the buzz of being on the front line.
“This is the front line of what it means to be British regarding the elections.”
In an interview with i columnist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown last year ahead of the publication of his memoir, Myrie spoke of death threats he had received following a reporting trip to the US for the BBC in 2017.
Myrie had broadcast about a lone killer who killed 58 innocent people in Las Vegas, and in the report described himself as an “Englishman”.
In response, one viewer left threatening messages with the BBC, reportedly using racist language to describe him and saying, “Myrie best stay in Vegas because just guess who has gone to the top of the list and he is much easier” and “does he know not to call himself an Englishman and does he know he’s at the top of my list.”
The individual was later found to have firearms in his home. “The massacre didn’t shock him. My claim to Englishness did,” Myrie told Alibhai-Brown.