AFTER Love Island star Chyna Mills, 26, had a baby with her fiancé, Strictly star Neil Jones, 42, she was hit by racist trolling over newborn Havana’s skin tone.
Here, she speaks about the abuse she’s faced and how she fought back . . .
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SNUGGLED in a nursing chair with my snoozing baby in my arms, I clicked on my Instagram direct messages.
As a content creator and influencer, this was something I did multiple times a day.
But rather than enjoy the comments from my 69,300 followers, one message hit like a blow to the stomach.
“I hope your ancestors curse your womb for having a white child,” it read.
And this wasn’t the first time I had been hit with colourist trolling. I had been secretly dealing with it since Havana was two weeks old.
My nightmare started when we put a professional shoot on my social media, when Havana was just 19 days old. Trolls started commenting with heart-breaking abuse.
It was all such a shock because, when I fell pregnant in January 2023, I had been so incredibly happy I never thought anything could put a dent in my bliss.
Neil and I met in July 2022 and had been in a romantic whirlwind of a relationship for five months when we decided to start a family.
We were thrilled to discover, after a month of trying, that we had conceived.
Happily, the pregnancy went well and when Havana arrived in October 2023, we fell madly in love with her.
The first Instagram photo I posted was a black and white image of her feet on the day she was born. We were bombarded with positive, caring messages.
But when I uploaded professional pictures taken when Havana was just two weeks old, I glanced at my direct messages and immediately felt like I had been punched.
“Why is she so white?” one follower bluntly asked.
My hormones were haywire and I was feeling everything so deeply, even without this assault.
Throughout my life I’ve never myself been affected by racism and my brain could not compute what I was seeing.
So many messages were being sent to me along the same lines – and some of the comments calling her “too white” came from people that were the same colour as me.
It was upsetting and confusing. I was absolutely shell shocked and devastated that my happy baby bubble had been burst.
I wrestled with the idea of stopping posting pictures, but this was my job and I wouldn’t be stopped by trolls.
I would get loads of messages a day and heaps of comments along the same lines under any pictures I posted.
VILE TROLLS
“You’ve had a baby that’s so pale compared to you. Is she even yours?” one sniped.
One of the worst things was, I dealt with this fury and sadness alone.
I didn’t show Neil straight away, as I didn’t want to make him sad too.
This was my first experience with internet trolls, as when I left Love Island in 2022, there was more love than hate.
But when you have a child, you’re so protective of your baby and this felt even more unnatural to me.
After a week of misery, the comments and DMs got to the point where I had to speak to Neil.
It was upsetting and confusing. I was absolutely shell shocked and devastated that my happy baby bubble had been burst.
He immediately went into pro-active mode and showed me how to filter certain comments on the apps.
I was filtering things like: “That baby don’t even have a little melanin, it’s just sad.”
But as the creator, I could still see them myself.
I would sit on the sofa choking back tears, knowing it was a losing battle. It was the most exhausting and emotionally draining time of my life.
I felt like I was fighting for survival sometimes, because of a lack of sleep and feeding, and struggling to keep my head above water day-to-day.
Often I’d be on the verge of replying to people, wanting to scream at them – but I could never give them that satisfaction.
After 10 weeks of this, I stopped responding to messages in my DMs, which was hard because I’ve worked tirelessly to carve out a job as an online creator.
But some nights I’d be so exhausted that I would have a lapse in judgement and would look at my DMs – and my heart would break as I saw comments like: “Whose white baby is that?”
One night, when I was up feeding at 3am, I made the mistake of clicking on my messages.
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A follower had direct-messaged me, saying: “I’m up now because all I’m doing is thinking about how your baby’s so white.”
I held my head in my hands, mortified that someone would focus on the skin colour of a baby.
Neil kept reassuring me that you can’t ever control what people say, but I was devastated by it.
He wanted to be our protector, but he couldn’t stop these messages coming in. He’d go into my account and delete them for me, but I felt like he was putting on a brave front, just to make everything seem OK.
These barbs were aimed at his precious little girl and he’d shake his head and say: “It’s just so wrong, on so many levels.”
People would say things like: “Did your genes even try to work?” or “Oh, well, thank God she’s whiter than you.”
It was all so devastating, but I didn’t share our problem with anyone except Neil, despite Havana having grandparents, aunts and uncles who are absolutely dedicated to her.
When Havana was 12 months old I couldn’t take any more.
I was sitting on my bed, shaking with anger, deleting comment after comment, and I thought: “All right, this is too much now, this has got to stop.”
SHAKING WITH ANGER
That afternoon, I made a video to upload to my social media, stating: “There will be no commenting on my child’s skin, that is not OK.”
I was choked up, but kept it together – because colourism is not OK and being an interracial couple is so normal.
After I made that video, I sat on the sofa in tears, relieved I had said my piece.
Since I’ve shared my experiences, so many people – including friends and family – have been in touch to say they’ve been through similar things. It is heart-breaking.
Neil kept reassuring me that you can’t ever control what people say, but I was devastated by it.
Since speaking out, I have not had one racist comment, which has been a breath of fresh air for me.
What’s more, a lot of people have even backtracked on what they have said, admitting they’ve been educated and now know that what they were saying was racism.
But the problem is still out there.
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People feeling comfortable commenting on someone’s skin colour is not OK.
I hope the world will change fast, so that little children like Havana do not ever get judged on the colour of their skin again.
Havana is 18 months old now and I’m grateful that she is healthy, funny and a wonderful person – the perfect mixture of Neil and me.
I hope for a better world for her and will continue to speak out until there is.
