Ava Evans 'fears for safety' over Laurence Fox and tells 'worst part' of fallout

30 September 2023 , 08:41

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Ava Evans 'fears for safety' over Laurence Fox and tells 'worst part' of fallout

Ava Evans has said that she "fears for her safety" after Laurence Fox's vile misogynistic rant, in which he called her a "little woman" and asked "Who would want to shag that?"

The journalist and political commentator, 29, has also revealed that the "worst part" of the fallout was having to explain the situation to her dad. She went on to explain that her mum, who has been in a frenzy because Ava's grandmother has been unwell, fretted: "You could kill her with this!"

On Monday, former actor-turned-failed mayoral candidate Fox and and Dan Wootton hit headlines when he made offensive comments about Evans on Wootton's show. He had been reacting to Eva discussing men's mental health and suicide on BBC's Politics Live show, which led Fox to launch a vile tirade of abuse towards her.

In his vicious rant, Fox mocked Evans and publicly humiliated her. He also described Ms Evans as a "little woman" and declared: "We don't need these sort of feminist 4.0" who he said are "pathetic and embarrassing". Fox and Wootton received a lot of backlash online, with GB News later suspending Wootton.

Laurence Fox made the comments on GB News (Twitter)

Wootton soon got suspended from GB News and his contract with MailOnline was terminated a day later. Following days of controversial tweets and an unwillingness to back down on his comments, Fox now issued an apology to journalist Evans.

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However, he also made one more nasty swipe towards her in the same breath, saying: "I was trying to make the point that any self-respecting man should run a mile from Ava, which I actually, with all due respect, I do stand by. I think what I'm trying to say is that I could have expressed it in a better way."

Speaking to the Mail, she said that one part had "stood out" from the last week: "'Explaining it to my dad. That has been the worst part of this. I had to say: 'Dad, I'm really sorry but this man has said he wouldn't want to have sex with me, and now a lot of people are talking about it, and it's on the news.' My dad was just confused. He said: 'But why would he say this? Have you dated him?' He just didn't get it."

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Responding to Fox's reference to her sexual attractiveness, she said that it would have been horrible for a woman to hear that she was "being discussed in those terms in the pub" and that while she's "not naive" and "knows men talk like that about women", she branded it "demeaning". 

Evans continued to say that producers should have stepped into the chat and that it "should never gone has far as it did". Speaking about the moment she first saw the video, she described it as an "out-of-body experience" and that when she woke up the next day after tweeting about it, her phone was full of messages of support from friends - but also vile messages and rape threats.

Responding to Fox's strange apology, in which he also insisted that there was a bizarre media plot to shut up down, she said: "He's now setting himself up as a bastion for free speech and using me for his next career. I'm a vehicle for another agenda, being used again."

Evans has said that she will be getting the police involved as she fears for her safety. "I was at a work event last night but coming back to my home, I found myself thinking: 'Do people know where I live? Am I in danger?' My mum, who has always been of the 'ignore it, let it wash over you' frame of mind, said to me last night: 'I wish you did not do this job.' It's made me question whether I can even continue doing it.

Rose Hill