Katie Hopkins: Why is she the most ‘hated’ woman in the world?

After being booted from Australia for blatantly disregarding Covid-19 quarantine rules, we take a look at Katie Hopkins’ controversial past.

Far-right commentator Katie Hopkins is being deported from Australia after making controversial quarantine statements.

New photos just released show her at Sydney Airport, looking downcast as she prepares to fly out of the country.

Katie Hopkins has been deported from Australia. Picture: Diimex

At the weekend, the British media personality was axed from her upcoming role on Channel 7’s Big Brother VIP, and had her visa cancelled overnight, Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews confirmed.

Ms Andrews told ABC News Breakfast: “We will be getting her out of the country as soon as we can arrange that. I am hoping that will happen imminently.”

Hopkins arrived in Australia last week on a “critical skills” visa and was widely reported to be joining the next season of the reality series.

But she quickly attracted criticism for her hotel quarantine rants since arriving in NSW, in which she likened Covid-19 to the flu, compared migrants to cockroaches and said people with dementia should not block hospital beds.

The mum-of-three also said she had been deliberately trying to defy hotel quarantine rules during her mandatory 14-day stint by opening her door to workers delivering her food naked.

“I’ve been told when they bring three meals a day to the door … I have to wait 30 seconds before opening the door,” she said.

“And then I can open the door but only with a face mask.”

Instead, she has said she has been “lying in wait” in the bathroom naked, sprinting to the door to “frighten the sh*t out of them [the workers] and do it naked with no face mask”.

Katie Hopkins takes to Instagram Live to criticise harsh lockdowns as she quarantined in Sydney. Picture: Instagram

Hopkins told followers she wanted to be “very clear” she was able to get into Australia thanks to her career as a “gobby mouth”, stressing it wasn’t a method “anyone else can follow”.

“I think it’s bulls**t. I think it’s bulls**t that I can be here and you can’t,” she said.

“I think it’s bulls**t that families who need to visit relatives here, whether they’re dying or not … it’s bulls**t that I’m here and you can’t be.”

She went on to say that since the start of the pandemic she has always claimed “lockdown is and will always remain the greatest hoax in human history”.

More than 10,000 people signed a petition to send the celebrity back to the UK.

Hopkins was meant to appear on Big Brother VIP. Picture: Matrix

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TV personality courts constant controversy

Hopkins, who first found fame as a contestant on the British version of The Apprentice before forging a media career, has been routinely labelled “racist” and a “bigot” for her views about immigrants in British media, making headlines for calling migrants “cockroaches” and “feral” and declaring that “gunboats” should be used to stop migrants and refugees from reaching their destination.

In 2013, she sensationally claimed her children would be banned from having friends with certain given names she considered to be lower class, such as Chardonnay, Charmaine or Chantelle.

The 46-year-old has also been accused of fat-shaming on many occasions and is anti-Islam, anti-immigration and pro-Trump. She has called the city of London “Khan’s Londonistan” – a reference to London Mayor Sadiq Khan who is of British-Pakistani heritage – and claimed there is “institutionalised discrimination against whites” in the UK.

After the Manchester bombing in 2017, Ms Hopkins sensationally called for a “final solution” to Islamic terror attacks – a term used by the Nazis to refer to the Holocaust.

Hopkins was at one stage a frequent guest on British TV. Picture: Supplied

But it was comments Hopkins made on Twitter in May 2015 about food writer and anti-poverty campaigner Jack Monroe that really came back to bite her.

In that incident, Hopkins accused Monroe of vandalising a war memorial.

It ended up being a case of mistaken identity – but while Hopkins later deleted her tweet, she did not apologise to the chef, going on to brand her as “social anthrax” online.

In January 2016, Monroe launched legal action, with Hopkins losing the $239,000 libel case after High Court judge Justice Warby said the tweets caused Monroe “serious harm”.

In September last year, Hopkins applied for an insolvency agreement in a desperate bid to avoid bankruptcy. She had already had to sell her Devon home to cover mounting legal costs.

“It’s really quite sad – two tweets cost her her house, job, and now her credit rating,” Monroe told the Guardian of the legal win last year.

In this British TV special, she debated reality star Gemma Collins about whether overweight people should pay more for flights. Picture: TLC

“I’m supposed to be jubilant and celebratory but I feel quite mixed up. Having been close to the edge of bankruptcy myself, it’s a hideous situation to be in, but [for Hopkins] it was completely avoidable,” she said. “Things are in place in that agreement to make sure her children are looked after. I’m a mother myself and I read it line by line to make sure that her children didn’t suffer as a result of what she’s done.”

In recent years, and in the wake of that financial insolvency, Hopkins’ lucrative British media appearances have all but dried up – and more recently, she joined Canadian far-right website Rebel Media as a columnist, though it’s understood the outlet quietly dropped her at the start of the year.

In September 2019, 60 Minutes was criticised for having her on the show to discuss Meghan Markle.

“She’s a no one,” Hopkins said of the Duchess. “She wears bad clothes. Meghan Markle is the biggest hypocrite there is,” she said. “All she does is glow.”

Her advice: “Abdicate. Off you go.”

Karl Stefanovic interviewed her on 60 Minutes. Picture: Channel 9

Hopkins’ appearance on the show was heavily criticised. Picture: Channel 9

Then in January 2020, Hopkins was banned from Twitter for violating the platform’s anti-hate policy.

Soon after, she was to become the butt of an extremely elaborate prank.

South African YouTuber and notorious prankster Josh Pieters, whose channel had amassed more than one million subscribers at the time, flew Hopkins to Prague to accept the “Campaign to Unify the Nation Trophy” – which was fake.

“Now that Katie Hopkins can’t read Twitter, I can tell you that on Monday I made her fly to Prague to pick up a completely fake award,” Pieters tweeted.

The tweet, liked by more than 100,000 people, was accompanied by an image of Hopkins holding a trophy and beaming in front of the award’s blown-up capital letters, which spelled a certain swear word starting with C.

YouTube prankster Josh Pieters flew Hopkins to Prague to accept the fake award. Picture: Twitter

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“Despite her charming views, one million Twitter followers and friendship with Donald Trump, Katie hasn’t won many awards,” Pieters said in a voice-over.

“So we thought it would be nice to give her one for being Britain’s biggest *bleep*.”

Hopkins responded, saying she was “delighted” and “overwhelmed” to accept the award in Prague.

“Without being able to say what we think, without being able to mock people, without being able to attack people, we are not free,” Pieters said when introducing Hopkins – who nodded in agreement – at the “ceremony”, before presenting her with the award.

“I am not used to receiving awards, it is strange, and it’s strange to hear nice things being said about yourself,” Hopkins said in her acceptance speech.

“Normally it is an incoming deluge of fireballs coming my way.”

She then went on to criticise Muslim people, sufferers of epilepsy and people with autism – before drinking wine from her trophy.

You can watch the elaborate prank here.