Body-shamed Shaughna Phillips has come out fighting after cruel trolls ordered the new mum to "lose weight".
The reality TV star became a first-time parent earlier this year after welcoming daughter Lucia in April but she has found herself under attack from bitter social media trolls who regularly seem ready to rip into her for her parenting skills. This time she was in the firing line after posting swimsuit shots from a break to Mallorca.
One social media user felt the right thing to do was to DM her and say "I think it's time you lose weight". But instead of letting the barb slide, the 28-year-old beauty re-posted the abuse and said she "did not care" what people thought about her post-labour figure.
In a now deleted post on her Instagram Story, the star said she had nothing at all to be ashamed about and says embracing her changing body is something she is very comfortable with. Shaughna decided to remove the message over fears she could get in hot water for naming-and-shaming the troll.
It is not the first time she has has had to fend off aggressive social media users who have seemingly been waiting for her to share photos of her and her daughter just so they can made a dig at her on the platform. Earlier this year, the reality star was targeted by online trolls who criticised her for driving with her baby daughter in a car seat in the passenger seat of the car.
Love Island's Haris spills on unaired row between Zara and TanyelBut now Shaughna has broken her silence on the bitter backlash to insist she was in the right. She told Heat magazine: “There was one comment about having Lucia in the car seat in the front. Now, I’m always on my own with her and I had a little bit of postnatal anxiety, so there’s no way I could have driven with her in the back.
“It would have been more dangerous than her being in the front. I found out that you can take a baby in the front if you turn the airbag off. So, that’s what I do.“ And some woman said, ‘That is so bad, just because it’s legal doesn’t mean it’s OK.’ And I replied, ‘Well, how is she going to be able to turn the radio over if she doesn’t sit in the front?’”
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents gives advice on travelling safely with a newborn child - and confirms what Shaughna suggests. On their website, they advise: "If the car does not have airbags in the front, or if they can be deactivated, or if the car has sensors which switches the airbag off automatically when you fit a child seat, then you can legally carry a rearward facing baby seat in the front."
Shaughna previously spoke about her birth experience and said it had not gone as she had initially planned. She told fans: "I started pushing at 6:30pm for over an hour but Lucia would come down and slide straight back up and her heart rate was rocketing.
"I then went in for emergency forceps but as soon as they put them on her head, she flipped around so they had to stop and go ahead with the emergency C-section. I was really sad I wasn't able to give birth how I originally planned, but I always said I'll have whatever birth needed to get here, and that was the most important thing to me."