Doctor Who actor Millie Gibson has revealed just how difficult it was to cope with rumours she was a ‘diva’.
The 21-year-old star played the 15th Doctor’s (Ncuti Gatwa) first companion Ruby Rose but her place on the Tardis come season two was shrouded in confusion.
After the first season, it was originally unclear if Gibson would return as a full-time companion leading to speculation bad behaviour on set had led to her removal – an accusation she couldn’t respond to.
When the show eventually aired once more it was clarified Varada Sethu would enter the Tardis as Belinda Chandra and Millie would appear as a featured guest in a handful of episodes.
She reflected on how ‘tough’ it was to stay quiet amid the discourse (in case she spoiled the nature of her ongoing role in the show).
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‘I couldn’t be like: “It’s a lie!’ [because] they’d be like, “Well, that’s spoilers”.
‘It was quite hard to stand up for myself without ruining the show. I was like, “Oh, this is horrific because it just looks like it’s true.’”
Only 19 at the time, she continued to the i Paper: ‘Oh, it was awful. What was frustrating was the amount of people that were like: “Oh, sorry, this has happened mate” [the rumoured abrupt exit] and I was like, “Yeah, it’s not [happened], but thank you.”‘
Showrunner Russell T Davies has previously spoken to Metro about the ‘tricky’ position he is put in when online rumours swirl.
‘It’s tricky because you can’t answer online rumours. Sometimes they’re lies, sometimes they’re true. Sometimes they’re false, sometimes they’re just exaggerations,’ he once explained.
Then added: ‘You cannot answer them all – by the time you’ve answered one rumour, it’s gone and mutated, and actually then you discover you’re actually answering someone in Saskatchewan with 79 followers.
‘It’s what you thought was a rumour was just someone making it up in their shed. So you can’t, you simply can’t.’
Gibson’s co-star Gatwa had to battle his own unsavoury online discourse after right-wingers on social media disparaged the show for casting a Black man in the lead role of the iconic sci-fi series.
He told Attitude Magazine at the time: ‘The hate? It is kind of fascinating to me because there’s so much energy they’re putting into it…
‘I think they need to go find a hobby is one thing. But another thing is that we do see a shift happening in casting, in positions of power and in the status quo.’
Ncuti and Millie have bid adieu to their characters for now, with the 15th Doctor’s regeneration airing earlier this year.
Although there is currently no official word on when the show will return (if it at all, although the BBC remains positive), the final shot showed former companion Billie Piper as the Time Lord so chatter is rife about whether she’ll be making an unexpected return.
Doctor Who is available to stream on BBC iPlayer.
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