Pregnant TV presenter receives hate mail for her 'gross' body

Meteorologist Kristi Gordon received a hurtful letter from an unhappy viewer about her pregnancy wardrobe. Photo / Global News

A Canadian meteorologist has described on air the hate mail she has received - simply for being pregnant.

Kristi Gordon, who is due to give birth to her second child in around three months, said it was "amazing" how affected she felt by a barrage of abuse from viewers apparently disgusted that she was wearing tight-fitting clothes over her baby bump.

Extraordinarily, this isn't the first time it has happened - and the senior meteorologist said that she had "expected" the abuse because she experienced it while pregnant with her first child, who is now three.

She discussed what happened on Thursday's edition of News Hour Plus - an online segment from Global BC - alongside news anchors Robin Stickley and Squire Barnes.

Kristi, who asked viewers to "please be nice about my clothing" when she publicly revealed her pregnancy, said that it all began with a single letter last week from a viewer unhappy about her maternity wardrobe.

She then read out the letter: "Nowhere on North American TV have we seen a weather reader as gross as you. Your front end looks like the Hindenburg and your rear end looks like a brick s**t-house. We now turn off Global."

Squire Barnes responded, "You know what? Good."

He added: "If you're going to diss us, please learn how to spell. Global is not G L O B E L."

But Kristi said she had also received other hurtful correspondence - including: "Buy some decent clothes and have some respect for your unborn child. You're not the first pregnant woman. OMG."

Another read: "Looser tops would look much more professional."

Kristi said: "We were expecting this. This happened last time I got pregnant. As I got bigger I started getting more and more bad notes and emails from people."

She then stood up to display her baby bump. "By the way, you can't really hide something like this."

To which Robin Stickley replied: "Why would you want to?"

But Kristi explained: "I feel like I'm a pretty confident person, I wouldn't be in this industry if I wasn't. I don't feel like this is affecting me, or has affected me.

"But I thought about some of the things I did last night; I checked the mirror to see how big I'm getting, I asked my husband, "Am I not seeing it? Am I getting really big?"

"It wasn't until I went to bed that I realised that - despite us saying that these guys are crazy - it's amazing that when you say something mean about someone it still affects them."

Kristi has been inundated with support on social media and her story has been shared 14,000 times on Facebook.

The news anchors finished their four-minute rant of support by screwing the letters up into tiny wads of paper and flicking them from the studio table to the floor, with the message: "Haters gonna hate. But if you're going to hate, learn how to spell."

- Independent