Abbie Chatfield pleaded with online critics on Wednesday to stop engaging with her posts and simply unfollow her, saying their sustained harassment has left her living in fear after she posted comments about the death of U.S. commentator Charlie Kirk.
In an Instagram video, the 30-year-old former Bachelor contestant and podcaster said she was being targeted by trolls who were creating hate pages and petitions and urged them to block or unfollow her if they wanted her de-platformed. “If everyone that hates me this much or spends their spare time making accounts of me, if you just blocked me or unfollowed me, my follower count would go down,” she said, adding: “Stop making your lives about me.”
Chatfield’s post followed a wave of backlash after she publicly said she “hated” Charlie Kirk in the hours after he was shot dead during a rally at Utah Valley University. Kirk, 31, a prominent conservative commentator and father of two, was shot in the neck and later died; his killing has been described by some as a political assassination.
In her initial posts, Chatfield — known in Australia for her reality television appearances and her podcast — called Kirk “racist, homophobic, transphobic, misogynistic, Islamophobic” and criticised his record on minority rights and abortion. She also warned that his death risked inflaming political tensions and could lead to more violence, writing that the killing would likely result in the commentator being martyred and further polarise the right and left.
Chatfield said she has been inundated with death threats, including messages containing her home address, and that the harassment had triggered a “severe mental health episode.” In a later statement she said she was “in fear” and not strong enough at the time to make further public comments beyond sharing what she described as “pretty mild views” about the political dynamics surrounding the killing.
In the Instagram video responding to the trolling, Chatfield mocked critics for driving the social-media algorithm by engaging with content about her and urged them to stop. “It’s so funny. You are spending your free time doing this. Just unfollow me if you want me to be de-platformed. If you hate me for what I said, unfollow me, block me, don’t engage with content about me,” she said. Her post was captioned: “Stop feeding the algorithm and showing it that you WANT TO SEE MY CONTENT?? No need for a petition… just UNFOLLOW ME????”
Chatfield also posted footage in which she is visibly upset, at one point crying and repeating language she said mirrored the death threats she had received: “You can’t say that, you can’t say that... f**king die bitch, we hate you,” she shouted in the clip, saying the words had been directed at her online.
The incident underscores the growing focus on the dynamics of online harassment and cancel-culture debates that often follow high-profile political violence. Chatfield has been an outspoken cultural commentator in Australia and abroad, and her remarks about Kirk drew swift attention because of the circumstances of his death and the polarised reaction it provoked.
She said those who wanted to see her disappear from the platform were effectively helping her reach a larger audience by repeatedly engaging with content about her. Chatfield’s appeal to detractors to simply unfollow echoes a common social-media strategy for reducing amplification of contentious content.
The posts and the threats that followed have not been publicly linked to any arrests or identified suspects. Chatfield said she had not made additional public comments beyond her initial posts since she began receiving the threats and that she was prioritising her safety and mental health. Representatives for Chatfield did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The events come as online harassment and threats against public figures continue to raise questions about platform moderation, the boundaries of political speech, and the real-world consequences of social-media outrage.