Luke Littler’s mum has lashed out at the Alexandra Palace crowd who incessantly booed her son during his World Darts Championship fourth-round victory over Rob Cross.
“The Nuke” was too good for former world champion Cross, prevailing with a 4-2 win despite the raucous crowd’s best efforts to put the defending champion off.
Asked about his reception, the 18-year-old opted for a fiery response, goading the crowd and thanking them for contributing to his earnings, with a record £1m prize pot for the winner at this year, double his first-place prize in last year’s edition.
"I'm not bothered, really, I'm really not bothered," Littler said before bursting into laughter.
"Can I say one thing, you guys pay for tickets that pays for my prize money, so thank you, thank you for my money, thank you for booing me, thank you, come on!
"I've just seen the stats but I wasn't really thinking of anything. I just wanted to win the game. It was hostile, nobody wanted me to win, but I proved them wrong."
And his mum, Lisa, has since added fuel to the fire, branding the fans who created the hostile atmosphere as “t****” as she leapt to her son’s defence in the comments of social media posts.
One commenter questioned why he wasn't allowed to call Littler a derogatory term “because he’s 18” after he chose to “financially ridicule a whole audience who've paid their hard earned money”.
Lisa responded: “So they buy tickets with there (sic) hard earned money to sit there like t**** and boo.”
Another told Littler as darts’ world number one to “behave like one”, to which Lisa hit back: “Behave like one (two laugh-crying emojis). Best comment so far am sure Luke will carry on behaving like one as he as (sic) done crowds were vile let's all boo the world number one idiots man.”
Meanwhile, a user bemoaned that “the more I watch Luke Littler, the more I hate him” - prompting his mother to teasingly respond: 'Aww gutted for ya nottt (sic).”
Littler, who has been the darling of the Alexandra Palace crowd since bursting onto the scene two years ago, did admit he “lost” his head with his on-stage response.
"That's the first time I've been at the World Championships and the crowd have not wanted me to win. I will expect the worst on New Year's Day and whatever happens will happen,” he added.
Littler will face Krzysztof Ratajski in his quarter-final, with the Polish star knocking out Luke Woodhouse to earn his place in the last eight.
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