‘Emmerdale’ actor Danny Miller has called for Twitter to do more to combat homophobic abuse.
Danny plays Aaron Dingle in the ITV soap, whose on-off relationship with Rob Sugden has dominated the show in recent years.
But while his character has been a hit with fans, he revealed on Friday (23 February) that the role has also repeatedly led him to be the subject of online abuse.
After sharing a screengrab from Twitter, who claimed that a tweet he’d received calling him a “faggot” didn’t violate “the Twitter Rules against abusive behaviour”, he urged the social media site to “sort [their] shit”.
Danny fumed: “This is my SIXTEENTH complaint about the same dead leg with a different account.. Won’t be on here much longer I can tell you that. Sort. Your. Shit. Out!!”
He even went as far as saying that the abuse was forcing him to consider leaving Twitter altogether.
Since Danny’s post, a spokesperson for Twitter has confirmed to the BBC that the user in question’s account was no longer live.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for ‘Emmerdale’ has also backed the actor, stating: “We find any form of abuse totally unacceptable and abhorrent.”
His soap husband, Ryan Hawley, has also spoken about receiving homophobic abuse over their characters’ ‘Emmerdale’ romance, telling Metro in 2016: “Unfortunately there was an incident where there were a few people who were a bit kind of homophobic towards me. I’m not gay in real life so it wasn’t really an attack on me as a person but it was quite upsetting that people felt that way.