HOLLYOAKS’ Kelle Bryan and Chelsee Healey have told how they burst into tears when their children said they were racially abused.
Kelle, 45, and Chelsee, 32, spoke out on the Channel 4 soap‘s Don’t Filter Feelings podcast with Loose women panelist Brenda Edwards, 51.
The women described the “vile” racist abuse their families had faced with Kelle, who is best known for playing Martine Deveraux since 2018, recalling her five year old crying after school one day.
She said: “He came home and he was really upset, and at that point I’d raised him to see people as human beings and as people, not as colours.
“I had to have a conversation with him about race and I explained the differences between black and white people and the difficulties that that might have, and the implications of that, which he’d already experienced at five.
She added: “I think it’s really important that my children understand and have a pride in who they are, an understanding of where they’ve come from and the sacrifices that have been made for them to have the lifestyle that they live.”
Chelsee, who has played Goldie McQueen in the soap since 2016, said she was sent nasty messages on social media about her daughter Coco.
She added: “I got the most vile, vile message about her, actually not too long ago… I just looked at them and burst out crying.
“There’s been another time when she came back from nursery, and she said ‘Mummy, I have brown skin. My friends say I’m brown’.
“So I just said, my reaction was, ‘Yeah, but you’re beautiful and brown. Brown is so beautiful’.
“I think she’s a little bit too young now to be having the conversation with her, but just so she knows that brown is so beautiful.”
Brenda said she was pressured to speak out during the Black Lives Matter protests which she didn’t enjoy.
She said: “I had a lot of people messaging me directly on social media saying to me to use my platform to say something, and putting me under that pressure.
“I thought to myself, I have no problem with saying what is on my mind, I’ve never had a problem in saying what I believe.
“[But] there was a part of me that felt a little bit of resentment. Don’t tell me how to feel.”
