Emily Thornberry tells Molly-Mae Hague to ‘grow up - life is harder than she thinks’

She’s attracted the attention of Nigel Farage, triggered a number of memes and parodies, and now Molly-Mae Hague and her comments about privilege have caused her to receive a dressing-down from shadow cabinet minister Emily Thornberry.

Speaking on Politics Live, the senior Labour Party politician criticised the former Love Island star over comments she made about everyone having “the same 24 hours in a day” to achieve success and said her views may change when she becomes older.

She said: “I don’t think she should read across from her own experience of life to the experience of others and I presume that when she gets older, if God forbid she did become ill, or she got a disability, or she had children or things did not go as well, perhaps she would understand that some people really struggle and that for some people 24 hours is 24 hours of struggle and that they don’t achieve as much as others because some people have a leg up.”

She went on to compare the influencer’s comments to former PM Margaret Thatcher’s attitudes.

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“Unlike her Margaret Thatcher ought to have had a better understanding of the world, but she continued - despite not being young - to believe that we were all equal, that we all had equal chance.

“A young woman from Love Island hopefully will grow up and understand that life is a bit harder than she first thought.”

Hague made her controversial comments on the podcast The Diary of A CEO.

“You’re given one life and it’s down to you what you do with it. You can literally go in any direction,” she told host Steven Bartlett.

“When I’ve spoken about that in the past I have been slammed a little bit, with people saying ‘it’s easy for you to say that because you’ve not grown up in poverty, so for you to sit there and say we all have the same 24 hours in a day is not correct.’ But, technically, what I’m saying is correct. We do.”

Hague continued: “I understand we all have different backgrounds and we’re all raised in different ways and we do have different financial situations, but I think if you want something enough you can achieve it. It just depends on what lengths you want to go to get where you want to be in the future.

“And I’ll go to any length,” she added: “I’ve worked my absolute a**e off to get where I am now.”

Following widespread backlash, the 22-year-old creative director of fast-fashion company Pretty Little Thing addressed those who “misunderstood” what she said in an Instagram story.

“When I say or post anything online, it is never with malice or ill intent. I completely appreciate that things can affect different people in different ways. However, I just want to stress that I would never intend to hurt or upset anyone by anything that I say or do,” she wrote.

She then added that she apologises to those who have been “affected negatively or misunderstood” what she meant because she wanted to inspire people from her own experiences.

Seems like she hasn’t done enough to win Thornberry over.