TOWIE’s Junaid Ahmed on inspiring closeted gay Muslims despite death threats
TOWIE star Junaid Ahmed has faced extreme social media abuse as a gay Muslim. (Getty)
TOWIE star Junaid Ahmed has faced extreme social media abuse as a gay Muslim. (Getty)
The Only Way Is Essex star Junaid Ahmed has revealed the extent of social media abuse which left him not wanting to leave his home.
Ahmed, 30, has been a cast member on the ITVBe reality series, known as TOWIE, since 2022, and is believed to be the UK’s first publicly gay, Muslim reality TV star.
Yet the TV personality says that the fact he is a gay Muslim has led to an onslaught of vile social media abuse over the years.
In April, Ahmed shared screenshots on Instagram of direct messages he’d been sent by a TOWIE viewer, in which he was called a “vile p**i b*****d” and told to “die”.
“This is the type of social media abuse I get so often,” Ahmed wrote over the screenshot.
He added: “Coming from an ethnic background being Pakistani, being Muslim, being gay, ever since I’ve been on TV I’ve always been trolled based on these three aspects of my life.”
Speaking to PinkNews, Ahmed has opened up about the harrowing extent of the abuse, which would often leave him “crying” – but also how the trolls inspired him to change Muslim, LGBTQ+ visibility on British TV.
“It was a huge shock to the system when I first joined the show and I saw all these comments and I was like, ‘Oh my God, I’m hated,’” he explains.
“I genuinely think I’m TOWIE’s most trolled cast member because [of] the amount of abuse I get on social media – death threats, racism.
“It did really upset me. I did always sit there thinking, ‘Why do I get so much abuse? Why don’t people like me?’ I’m a nice person, but people haven’t really gotten to know me, etc.
“I used to cry. I’d be so upset, sometimes you sit there and cry and be like, ‘I don’t want to go out, I don’t want to do anything.’ And it really changed how I wanted to be out and about in public,” he confesses.
Junaid Ahmed joined TOWIE from season 29 onwards, and is currently beginning filming for his seventh season on the show. He says that he “always knew” that joining TOWIE as “such a diverse cast member” would lead to hate as he would be “breaking boundaries” for queer Muslims in the UK.
Yet as his experience on the show grows, and he enters his thirties, Ahmed says that he is slowly managing to tune out the bullies.
“When you turn 30, you realise what’s really important in life and Karen down the road calling me a racist word or a slur really doesn’t bother me, babe,” he smiles.
“I’m so busy working on my own life, trying to make a difference, and the positivity for everyone else [that] your negativity is never going to be my focus point.”
Ahmed has been a controversial character on TOWIE since joining the hit ITV show, with recent stories seeing him begin a relationship with Joe Blackman, the ex-boyfriend of his former best friend, Harry Derbridge.
Ahmed and Blackman have recently moved into a £1million house in Essex, and are thinking of having a huge Bollywood-style wedding at some point in the future.
Yet despite his contentious love life, Ahmed says the bulk of the abuse he receives is directly targeted at the fact that he is a gay Muslim.
Equally, though, he says he gets messages “every day” from closeted queer Muslims who are inspired by him living so publicly.
“The amount of messages I get from younger gay Muslim guys that DM me every single day and say to me ‘You’re an inspiration, you’re helping me every single day, watching you is helping me’ – I think that’s why I do it. I do it to change people’s lives because no one was there to change mine,” he says.
Many of the Muslims who message Ahmed are “petrified” of coming out for fear of being rejected, “shunned” or even “potentially being killed” by their families, he explains.
After he came out to his parents as gay aged 18, Ahmed was kicked out of the family home and contact was cut. To this day, the reality star has no relationship with his family.
“My family couldn’t accept it and that’s sad for my life, but unfortunately I had to make the choices that I had to make,” he reflects. “I always tell people, ‘You don’t choose to be gay. It’s not a choice.’”
As he enters his seventh TOWIE season, Ahmed has his mind set on how he can use his platform to improve media visibility for other LGBTQ+ Muslims.
“I’m the minority of the minority, just from my culture and background. So it’s bringing us people to the forefront and making that a topic of conversation for people to be like, ‘Oh actually, Junaid’s a bit different, where’s he from?’ It’s bringing us to the forefront of these mainstream channels and letting people see this is normal.
“I just want to be me, to be proud of who I am,” he rounds off. “I love my religion. I love my culture. That’s something that will never go from me even though I’m not part of my family anymore. But it’s letting the world see that as well.”
The Only Way Is Essex is streaming now on ITVX.
Share your thoughts! Let us know in the comments below, and remember to keep the conversation respectful.
