Australian Olympic great Cate Campbell has opened up on a terrifying incident this week where she received a phone call late at night from a stranger threatening sexual abuse.
Campbell, who has eight Olympic medals and was a flag-bearer at the Tokyo Games in 2020 among her many accolades and achievements, this week wrote a column for News Corp about her experiences with abuse.
But in a television interview with The Today Show on Wednesday morning, Campbell revealed a horrific recent incident.
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“I had a scary experience just the other day, I released an article talking about the online abuse that I had received and that night I received a phone call at 1am,” she said.
“[The caller] left a message saying that if I didn’t pick up the f—ing phone they were going to f—ing rape me.
“I think that that experience isn’t unique to me, it’s not unique to many female figures online and the scary thing is how threatened I felt about it and that my personal safety was in danger.”
Campbell, who has repeatedly spoken out against online abuse of athletes throughout her career, revealed she has been forced to restrict her social media profiles to shut down the awful attacks.
“It’s been incredibly tough, it’s made me completely switch off from feedback on social media – which is then really awful because I know that there are so many wonderful people out there who want to send me messages of love and support,” she said.
“But, unfortunately, there is a small minority of people who will send pretty disgusting things. So, I’ve just had to switch off from it all which then means I’m missing out on opportunities to engage with my supporters who have been along this journey with me.”
She added that reading abusive messages takes a “huge personal cost” and “can be completely devastating”.
Campbell said: “I don’t want to wade into the muck and so I have to completely abstain, but it’s really hard because what do you do? Because if you’re ignoring it are you then condoning it? If you’re not engaging with it and calling it out, then you’re not standing for change,” she said.
“But there’s a huge personal cost of going through and looking at what people have said about you.
“These are often the things you secretly think about yourself and when you see that confirmed, it’s like your deepest, darkest fears are confirmed at that moment and it can be completely devastating.”
The 30-year-old swim great doubled down on a stance she earlier shared in the column, that telling athletes to switch off social media was not ‘fixing the problem’.
“For those people who say, ‘Just get off social media’. You are victim blaming,” she added.
“Just as we think that women should be able to walk home at night, women should be able to exist safely on social media.
“So, if you’re pointing this out, you’re victim blaming and you are part of the problem because you are pointing at the victim and not the perpetrators.
“It’s not fixing the problem.”
