TikTok star 'Simple' Simon Colbran admitted he didn't anticipate to receive such a hostile reception after being branded a "paedophile" during his face-off with Ed Matthews.
52-year-old Colbran and fellow content creator Matthews headline a Kingpyn boxing event this Saturday at The O2 Indigo Arena in London. The fight came around after the TikTok duo butted heads on the platform, with Matthews taking aim at Colbran for making videos with 21-year-old content creator Astrid Wett because of the difference in age between the pair.
Colbran was branded a "paedophile" by fans during his press conference with Matthews last month. Speaking with Mirror Fighting , Colbran said it's "not right" that his family members have to put up with the vile comments that come his way.
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"I didn’t expect it to be that bad," Colbran said of the vulgar comments he received at the press conference. "The things they chant I just wanna get that out of the way because people just jump on a bandwagon. All this was about me collabing with a 21-year-old, that’s where this name came about which doesn’t make you that kind of person.
"I’ve got five kids, three granddaughters and they have to hear that. People chanting that isn’t nice and it’s not right. I think that half of them don’t even know what it means and the other half just says it because everyone else says it."
Many of Colbran's TikTok videos are often removed from the platform because of several people reporting them, despite the videos not breaking any guidelines on the platform. Colbran insisted that content creators have little protection on social media platforms and "trolls" can leave hateful comments with no repercussions.
"I’ve actually reported a lot of it to TikTok and Instagram," Colbran added. "The most disappointing thing about it is I’ve had messages back saying ‘sorry we didn’t find anything wrong with it’. I think that’s disgraceful, social media sites need to start looking after the people that are on their platforms."
Matthews has tried to get under Colbran's skin by involving his family in the build-up to the fight, targeting his 18-year-old daughter Keeley. He brought a sex toy to their press conference and gave it to Colbran to pass onto his daughter, with a scuffle subsequently breaking out between them.
