British journalist and media personality Katie Olivia Hopkins is renowned for her candor. She originally rose to prominence as a divisive candidate on the BBC program “The Apprentice.” She was from Devon, England, and was raised there. She studied economics and military training, but due to her epilepsy, she was not commissioned. She participated in a couple more reality series after her debut on “The Apprentice,” and she later wrote columns for the British newspapers “The Sun” and “Mail Online.” Her ideas, as expressed in her essays and tweets, frequently caused controversy. Her remarks on migrants, dementia patients, and Scots people sparked outrage, petitions, and rallies. ‘Homicide and major crime command’ has interviewed her under a code of conduct due to the accusations of promoting racial bias. She was fired as a radio host for “LBC” for making comments concerning the “Manchester Arena Bombing.” The magazines she worked for occasionally had to reimburse the people she had accused of damages and legal fees. She currently contributes articles to The Rebel Media, a Canadian website. She has three children and is married to Mark Cross.
Early Childhood & Life
Hopkins was born on February 13, 1975, to an electrical engineer father and a banking mother in Barnstaple, Devon, United Kingdom. The younger of the two daughters, she grew raised in Bideford. She attended a private convent school where she competed in athletics and took piano and violin lessons in addition to her academic studies.
She attended the “University Of Exeter” to study economics after leaving the school and participated in the “Officer’s Training Camps” on the weekends. She received her military training at the ‘Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst’. She was unable to accept her commission position, however, because epilepsy was detected when she graduated.
She spent time working at a Manhattan, New York, business firm before moving back to the UK in 2005. She started working at Met Office as a worldwide brand consultant in September 2006.
Career of Katie Hopkins
Soon after beginning her position, the Met Office gave her an unpaid leave of absence so that she could take part in the third season of the BBC reality competition show “The Apprentice,” in which contestants vied for the opportunity to work for entrepreneur Alan Sugar. She gained notoriety during the competition for her criticism of other participants, backstabbing attacks, and contentious remarks regarding themes like maternity leave and obesity, among others. She left the show prior to the finals, citing childcare concerns.
She was fired from her position at the Met Office in June 2007 as a result of the show for failing to meet the requirements to finish her probationary period as well as her performance on the program. Her tale was later sold to two newspapers.
She participated in the comic panel game program “8 Out of 10 Cats” in 2007 and had appearances as a guest star on “Loose Women” and “The Friday Night Project.” She participated in ‘I’m a Celebrity – Get Me Out of Here!’ that same year as one of the stars. Hopkins participated in the reality competition “Celebrity Big Brother” on “Channel 5” in January 2015, where she finished in second place. She frequently got into arguments and was aggressive toward other participants.
She produced 2 programs for the TLC channel in 2015. She initially put on 3 stones (19 kg) for her show “My Fat Story” before losing that weight over the course of six months. She wanted to demonstrate that obesity can be managed, thus the entire procedure was captured on tape. If Katie Hopkins Ruled the World was her other “TLC” program, however, it was canceled after the first season due to poor ratings.
She began hosting a Sunday morning chat program on LBC, a national radio station, in April 2016. But on May 26, 2017, the radio station announced the termination of her employment following her tweet regarding the “Manchester Arena Bombing” in which she wrote, “We need a final solution.”
Become a Columnist
She initially contributed to the Exeter newspaper “Express & Echo” up until 2007. Hopkins began writing a weekly column for “The Sun” in October 2013. She was referred to in the media as “Britain’s most contentious columnist.” She was employed by “The Sun” until the fall of 2015, at which point she began working for “Mail Online,” a Daily Mail online site. She penned her last piece for “Mail Online” on October 5, 2017. After November 2017, her contract was not extended.
Hopkins uses posts or tweets to share most of her opinions on Twitter, where she is active. She started writing a column for the Canadian far-right website “The Rebel Media” in January 2018 and calls it “Hopkins World.”
She ran as an Independent for the South-West England constituency in the “2009 European Parliament Election” and garnered 0.6% of the total vote.
Disputations and Legal Issues
Hopkins was embroiled in several legal disputes and scandals during the course of her career.
Hopkins faced backlash in July 2013 for her remarks about the given names and her distaste for “lower-class names” on the ITV program “This Morning.” She continued by saying she opposed “geographical location names.” She stated that her daughter’s name, India, had nothing to do with geography when it was brought up, but a viewer vote disproved her assertion.
Since the “Glasgow helicopter crash” of 2013 had just occurred, her tweet in December 2013 regarding “Scottish life expectancy,” which she made after taking part in a “ITV” debate on Scottish Independence, drew criticism. To prevent her from appearing on ‘ITV’ programmes, there were petitions and signature drives. Later, she expressed regret.
Her remarks regarding the Ebola illness of Scottish charity worker Pauline Cafferkey (2014), the drowning victims at Camber Sands (2016), and referring to dementia patients as “bed-blockers” (2015) were found offensive and received harsh criticism.
She was accused of possibly committing acts of racial hatred in March 2015 after objecting to ‘National Pakistan Day’ celebrations in Rochdale on the basis of the ‘Rochdale sex trafficking case,’ which was raised by MP Simon Danczuk.
She wrote a post for “The Sun” in April 2015 in which she compared migrants to cockroaches and suggested using gunships to prevent them from navigating the Mediterranean. The United Nations High Commission for Human Rights denounced her column. ‘The Sun’ should fire Hopkins, according to petitions that were circulated on Twitter and in the media. It collected 310,000 signatures (in total). She was questioned but not charged after the “Metropolitan Police Commissioner” was notified about her and the publication. By December 2016, the article has finally been taken down from the website.
Hopkins supported Donald Trump while he was running for president. Trump thanked her and referred to her as a “Respected Journalist.” She was referred to as a “racist” during a “LBC” radio station show in January 2017 (by a caller-listener), to which she responded, “Call me racist, I don’t care… She was imprisoned and her passport briefly seized in South Africa in 2018 on suspicion of promoting hatred.
Hopkins stated in a letter following the “Manchester Arena Bombing” in May 2017 that “We need to find a permanent solution.” The Nazis first referred to the “Holocaust” as the “final solution.” Later, the tweet was changed to read “True Solution” in its stead. ‘LBC’ radio station’s hiring of her was cited as justification for a boycott of the station and calls to denounce her remarks. She clarified in an interview that she meant a long-lasting answer when she said “Final solution.” Following this incident, Hopkins departed “LBC.”
Hopkins wrongly charged Jack Monroe, a cookbook author, with damaging a war memorial. Later, she understood that she had misidentified Monroe as the writer Laurie Penny, who had published articles in favor of the vandalism. Monroe demanded an apology and a payment of £5,000 to a good cause. He filed a lawsuit in 2016, and in 2017 he was awarded £24,000 in damages and £107,000 in court fees.
The Walthamstow-based Mahmood family learned that their entry visas to the US had been revoked in December 2015 at the Gatwick airport. Two pieces on “Mail Online” Hopkins said that the members of the family were extremists and that the authorities were correct to stop the family. The family received £150,000 in damages from the “Daily Mail” in December 2016.
Hopkins claimed that Jackie Teale, a teacher, had brought her class to a demonstration against Trump. Even though Hopkins had left “Mail Online,” Teale had to be compensated in November 2017.
Individual Life of Katie Hopkins
In Exeter, England, Hopkins wed former Royal Marine Damian McKinney in September 2004. Their two daughters. After the birth of their second daughter, the couple filed for divorce in 2005. At the Met Office, she met design manager Mark Cross. In 2010, they got hitched, and the ceremony was documented on camera for the reality series “Four Weddings.” Their son is born.
She had brain surgery in February 2016 to treat her epilepsy, and she later declared herself to be seizure-free.
She published her autobiographical book, “Rude,” in November 2017.