'Excited to rape you to death': Abbie Chatfield reveals escalating vile abuse

Popular media identity Abbie Chatfield has revealed the abuse she continues to face as a successful and popular woman in media.

At 23, in 2019 she appeared on The Bachelor. Since then, she's made a successful name in Australia as an advocate for women and social justice issues.

But despite her immense success, Chatfield continues to be the subject of abuse. 

Speaking to the ABC this week, Chatfield said: “Previously, it was confined to the internet, so it was easy to go, 'Well, if I put my phone in a drawer, that doesn't exist anymore'.

"But now it's become more of a real-life thing."

Chatfield says she's been told horrific things including, “I'm excited to rape you to death” and “I’m excited to see the life go out of your eyes.”

Chatfield shared that trolls have even created a fake social media profile just to make “deepfake porn of me and send it to me of me with a neo-Nazi leader”.

“People say just ignore it, it’s just kids. It’s not kids, it’s grown men,” she said. “I’ve found some of their accounts. It’s often men with children who have access to ways to come and kill me. Even if I deleted my social media, I think it would still happen.”

Chatfield revealed the impact on her of the escalating cruelty.

“I’ve been doxed, I’ve had people actively try to get me fired from jobs, people threatening to stab me to death, to kill me to strangle me … and posting my address publicly.”

She added that the usual advice of blocking accounts and reporting abuse no longer works.

"The only boundaries that I can put in place is to not check my DMs, but then I fear that I'm going to miss someone, telling me they're gonna come kill me," she said.

“I don't really know what to do about it. The only option really is to move countries.”
 

Chatfield admitted that she's been more considered about posting “controversial” content, but that makes her feel “trapped", and the haters are determined to hate anyway.

"There have been periods of time where I haven't gone on social media, and I've received texts, like, threats of sexual assault to my personal phone number. And I don't know how they've gotten my personal phone number," she said.

'I envy you': An open letter to Abbie Chatfield

In May, Mediaweek published the initially anonymous: 'I envy you': An open letter to Abbie Chatfield, where a journalist (this writer) called out the Australian media for their cruel reporting of Chatfield's every move.

I wrote:

"I've been watching the media's treatment of you this year, and it's bloody appalling. You've called it a "smear campaign", and I absolutely agree.

"Your Instagram post last night (see below), in which you were "begging these people to leave me alone for just one month," was heartbreaking."

 

 

 

 

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A post shared by ABBIE CHATFIELD (@abbiechatfield)

The story was well-received by many women in the media. But Chatfield was also widely accused of having written the story herself, or at least, commissioning it.

I then felt compelled to write, 'I wrote the anon open letter to Abbie Chatfield. Now I'm outing myself', to defend her - and prove my original point.

Now, after the most recent ABC conversation, I wonder if it will ever end?

Rhetorical question, of course.