Coronation Street’s Channique Sterling-Brown slams fan abuse over interracial couple
Channique Sterling-Brown has hit out at trolls criticising her character Dee-Dee Bailey’s interracial relationship in Coronation Street.
Over the last six months, Dee-Dee has begun dating solicitor Joel Deering (Calum Lill).
We’ve seen him support his new girlfriend through her dad Ed’s (Trevor Michael Georges) gambling addiction and turmoil following brother Michael’s (Ryan Russell) accidental involvement in Stephen Reid’s (Todd Boyce) crimes.
However, their happiness was short-lived when Dee-Dee discovered that he was married and had an infant daughter.
Despite his wife Emily Wilkinson (Ellena Vincent) asserting to her that their relationship ended long before their daughter Maeve was born, she wondered whether she could ever trust him again.
In a chat on ITV daytime show Loose Women today (27th March), Channique and Calum spoke about the backlash they’d received online.
‘I’ve heard you’ve received some negative comments about their biracial relationship? How does that affect you, because even though you’re playing a character it’s a serious subject. How’ve you dealt with that?’ asked panellist Dame Kelly Holmes.
‘I think for us, we live in Manchester which is a diverse and brilliant city and I think it’s just so normal and natural anyway to see these different relationships’ replied Channique.
‘We’re not the only interracial couple on the show anyway and I find it so bizarre that people are like “that would never happen” but Manchester is such a melting pot so I think for us it’s more important to focus on the work and the people we represent,’
‘Actions speak so much louder than the words the trolls have to say.’
She’d previously spoken about the ordeal in an interview with Digital Spy: ‘I just thought it’s so bizarre, because the relationship had nothing to do with race,’
She continued: ‘As a black woman in the industry, I think we do put constraints on ourselves on how we’re going to be presented, especially romantically. So whether we are the sexual interest or just the friend-zoned woman or whatever, I feel like we’re often hypersexualised or under-sexualised as black female characters.’