‘The whole thing is making me feel quite itchy and gross’
Ava Evans has spoken out about Laurence Fox’s vile and misogynistic rant against the political journalist.
The original story stemmed after Evans said on the BBC that calls for a minister for men “feed into the culture war”.
Evans had later clarified that on reflection she thought there was merit in a ministerial brief to address mental health issues among young males.
Fox responded to her comments by broadcasting a bizarre and personal rant against Evans on Dan Wootton Tonight in which Wootton discussed Evans with fellow GB News presenter Laurence Fox
Fox’s diatribe included the following: “Show me a single self-respecting man that would like to climb into bed with that woman ever, ever”. Wootton was shown laughing at these comments as they were made.
Following a mass backlash online, GB News quickly distanced themselves from Fox issuing a statement labelling the remarks as “totally unacceptable”.
In a later statement, a GB News spokesperson said: “GB News has formally suspended Laurence Fox while we continue our investigation into comments he made on the channel last night.
“Mr Fox’s suspension is effective immediately and he has been taken off air.
“We will be apologising formally to Ms Evans today.”
GB News then later announced that Wootton would also be suspended.
Now, appearing on the PoliticsJOE Pubcast alongside Ed Campbell, Ms Evans spoke out about Fox’s vile and misogynistic rant saying “the whole thing is making me feel quite itchy and gross”.
After sharing the footage from GB News, Ms Evans explained: “I just feel like I’ve been put in the middle of a furore and a story that I didn’t ask to be put into.
“For a long time that man has said some pretty despicable things about women. I mean there’s the comments about asking a fellow journalist what colour knickers she’s wearing, or there’s another commentator where he put out a tweet being like ‘oh god you wouldn’t want to be her girlfriend’ [sic] or whatever.”
Ms Evans continued, saying: “I just think it speaks to a wider power dynamic that is falling away now but definitely used to be there in the last few years. It’s like an antiquated practice of not being able to properly challenge a woman on her words and so just going for her level of attractiveness, or her ‘shagability’.”
Ms Evans then began to explain that she is used to being criticised on social media, however Fox’s comments, being broadcast live on air, to millions of people across the globe, is radically different.
She explained: “I think any woman who’s on social media gets that all the time. There’s always someone shouting at you about how ugly you are, or how large you are, or whatever. None of that bothers me. If anything, we laugh about that sort of stuff upstairs all the time.
“I’ll regularly read you out a pretty despicable comment and be like: ‘Ha nice one Barry’.
“But this being on a national television programme… What I don’t like about it was the comments were said, the presenter laughed about it, there was an entire gallery of people watching it go out doing nothing, from the viewers perspective, to stop it.
“And we’ve now come to find out today that that it was pre agreed with producers that he was going to say that, that he was going to talk about my looks in the context of this discussion. And that he also then joked with the presenter after the segment about how funny it all was.”
Ms Evans also revealed that the show’s host, Dan Wootton, had tried to contact her numerous times throughout the night.
She said: “He [Dan Wootton] called me multiple times throughout the night last night. And I don’t know him, I know who gave him my number and it was a woman and I’m really disappointed in her. I should’ve been asked permission for that.
“I was getting calls up until 1 o’clock in the morning, voicemails. And after that tweet from Laurence Fox went out, proving they both had a good laugh about all of it before public opinion had showed itself on the situation, he then called again. I don’t want to hear from him.
“This is actually nothing to do with me. This is a network problem. This is a presenter, guest, gallery, production issue that is nothing to do with me. I just so happen to be the person they’re talking about.”
“I’m just a commodity in this story. I’m just a vehicle for content, and that’s the bit that makes me feel most sick.”
Ms Evans concluded that she is not the caricature they are painting her to be, saying: “They’re making this character: young, blonde woman, hates men, sneers at male suicide, is hard left. Now let’s mock her for her appearance. I don’t exist in this. I’m a fabrication.”
