Celebrity Traitors star Romesh Ranganathan has revealed that his wife Lisa was targeted by an online troll who branded him a ‘caste traitor’ for marrying her.
The 48-year-old comedian said he receives racist messages online every day. However, the abuse recently took a deeply personal turn when his wife of 47 years received her first racist message on social media.
‘I’m not exaggerating, I receive racist messages online every day,’ Romesh said.
‘My wife, Lisa, someone messaged her on Instagram and said, “You are a race traitor because you married one of them. You are no longer welcome among white people.” She was incredibly upset, and I said, “Here’s my advice: Look at our house. You’ve come over to the dark side, and it’s working very well for you. Cry those tears in the swimming pool.”
He further added, ‘Although I felt bad about it. Even though it’s not my fault, I’m the reason Lisa got that message. She is upset now because she has married me. It is not a good thing to struggle with this.
‘If she had been married to a white guy, she wouldn’t have gotten this message, but she also wouldn’t have a pool.’
Celebrity Traitors star Romesh Ranganathan has revealed that his wife Lisa was targeted by an online troll who branded him a ‘caste traitor’ for marrying her.
The 48-year-old comedian said he receives racist messages online every day. However, the abuse recently took a deeply personal turn when his wife of 47 years received her first racist message on social media.
The Weakest Link presenter made the comments in front of an intimate crowd at a pub in New Malden while testing new comedy material for his upcoming tour, Romesh Ranganathan Will Change Your Life, which starts next month.
The event was set up through Outside the Box Comedy Club, with tickets priced at £18.
A source told the Daily Mail that Romesh was in ‘top form’ and the crowd ‘loved his new material’.
Romesh has previously spoken openly about suffering ‘disgusting’ racist abuse at her sons’ school.
The TV and radio star has three boys, Alex, Theo and Charlie, with his drama teacher wife. The couple are raising their boys in Romesh’s hometown of Crawley in West Sussex, in a £3million home just five miles from the terrace house where he grew up.
‘The boys have been subjected to racist abuse. Not very much, not as much as I did, but he had comments, he told his Wolf & Owl podcast co-host, Tom Davis.
‘An incident happened with us. One of the kids was talking to a girl he had friends over at school, and one of the other kids said, ‘I don’t know why you’re bothering to talk to her. “You’re finally going to marry your cousin.”
Romesh said: ‘When Alex was hanging out at school, he said the P-word to her.’
Recalling racist incidents when he was growing up, Romesh said, ‘A lot of abuses were hurled at me.
‘I remember one time I was walking out of school and then a kid who was known for being racist spit on me.
‘Then at uni, it happened a few times. ‘Skinheads jumped on me when I was coming out of a club.’
His mother Shanthi, who starred with him on his game show Romesh Ranganathan’s Parents Evening, moved from Sri Lanka to Crawley with her father Ranga at the age of 19.
The TV and radio star shares three boys Alex, Theo and Charlie with his drama teacher wife Lisa (pictured in 2019)