Comic Millican strikes back against Twitter trolls

UK comedian Sarah Millican has hit back against online criticism she received over her choice of dress at the 2013 Bafta awards.

Writing in this week's Radio Times, Millican - who was nominated for a Bafta last year for The Sarah Millican Television Programme and who is again up for a gong in the 2014 awards which take place in London tonight - said that Twitter trolls "were like a pin to my excitable red balloon" following the awards.

.@SarahMillican75 : #Twitter was a pin to my excitable Bafta balloon http://t.co/YN7ocUSiDh pic.twitter.com/EMMrfMfeIa

— Radio Times (@RadioTimes) May 15, 2014

"I’m sorry. I thought I had been invited to such an illustrious event because I am good at my job," wrote the comic, who described how she had bought her floral dress in John Lewis.

Millican wrote how, following the ceremony, she had logged on to Twitter to see "literally thousands of messages from people criticising my appearance".

"I was fat and ugly as per usual," she said.

"My dress (the one that caused ooohs in a department store fitting room?) was destroyed by the masses. I looked like a nana, my dress was disgusting, was it made out of curtains, why was I wearing black shoes with it.

"I cried. I cried in the car.

"And that wasn’t the end. The next day, I was in newspapers pilloried for what I was wearing. I was discussed and pulled apart."

She also said that she had made a decision that if she should ever be invited to attend the Baftas again, she would wear the same dress.

"To make the point that it doesn’t matter what I wear; that’s not what I’m being judged on."

Her brutally honest piece has attracted support online, including from fellow comedien Dara O'Briain, who dubbed Millican's critics "shallow pricks" on his own Twitter feed.

@SarahMillican75 Lots of people suggesting I wear your dress to the Baftas in your absence. I would but the back-waxing might kill me xxx

— Dara Ó Briain (@daraobriain) May 14, 2014

Millican, who is nominated in the 'Entertainment Performance' category at tonight's awards alongside Ant and Dec, Charlie Brooker and Graham Norton, is unable to attend the ceremony as she is gigging.

"But if you have tickets to see my show in Buxton on 18 May, you may see me making my point anyway," she said.