What is the worst thing anyone has said to you?

Originally asked

The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A

A fixed Guardian Q&A prompt asked directly across respondents and years.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

Recorded Melanie Blatt said elsewhere, not written here
“Your career will be over if you have the baby.”To whom would you most like to say sorry, and why? My parents, for my teenage years. I tried to run away when I was 15. We lived in a fishing village in France and, with my boyfriend, I headed to Spain to sell arts and crafts on the beach. Mum came and took me home.

The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 29 July 2023 source ↗

Others on this question

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It’s that bad, I’d never repeat it. I’ll just say it was particularly cruel and incredibly racist. It was somebody that I used to date, at the end of the relationship, and it hurt very deeply.
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 9 December 2023 source ↗
As a young actor, again at the Citizens theatre, I was making an exit and a theatregoer leaned over the balcony and said, “You’re terrible!”
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 26 July 2025 source ↗
In school, I was 11, and we had to paint a picture of family life. My painting was held up to the class and I was told it looked like a spider with ink on its feet had walked across the page. It was done so viciously – humiliating.
Recorded The Q&A, The Guardian, 28 June 2025 source ↗
Craig Charles English actor
I was born in 1964, in the most working-class area of Liverpool, so the N-word was bandied around a lot.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 13 July 2024 source ↗

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