Countryfile presenter Anita Rani has opened up about how the racism she has experienced during her career can be “frustrating”.
The 42-year-old TV star said incidents happened “all the time” including “people thinking it’s OK to imitate an Indian accent in front of me”.
She said: “Things have happened at work too. Ask any ethnic, black or Asian person who works in any big industry – we know we have to work a bit harder.
“I’ve had to prove myself a lot more than others and it’s frustrating, but it’s not just about race. All women feel it, don’t they? We just have to keep ploughing away.”
Anita has fronted numerous BBC documentaries and reached the semi-finals of Strictly Come Dancing in 2015.
And she said she was pleased that she had broken down many barriers.
“It feels great to have worked so hard and achieved something like that; smashing glass ceilings is a pretty great feeling,” she told Good Housekeeping magazine. “But it’s important to me to speak out about the struggles I’ve had.
“People think [Asian women] are quite square, clever and don’t have sex until we’re married (of course, Mother, I didn’t!).
“But that’s just not the case. I’ve hated being put in boxes my whole life.” Anita also revealed how she had discussed Countryfile with the Queen at a ceremony. She said: “It was Sir Mo Farah, Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson, Liam Payne and me inside Buckingham Palace. I was incredibly nervous, but she was so disarmingly warm.”
Anita added she felt good about getting older in the industry. She said: “For me, there’s more beauty in wisdom.”
- Read the full interview in May’s Good Housekeeping, out on sale tomorrow.
