Clemmie Hooper Returns To Instagram

We've been waiting with interest to see how Clemmie Hooper navigates her inevitable return to the world of social media after the Mother Of All Scandals earlier this month. And now she has - in a podcast with Big Brother winner and presenter Kate Lawler.

The podcast – which seems to have been recorded before the news broke that Clemmie had been posting trolling comments about other parenting influencers under a fake name – is a conversation between Kate and Clemmie about positive births and Clemmie's experiences as a midwife.

The problem is that it's Clemmie's work as a midwife that has added to the ongoing argument surrounding her trolling, as some of the comments she made towards fellow blogger Candice Brathwaite have been widely regarded as racist. This issue takes on an even more pressing level of importance given that black women are five times more likely to die in childbirth in the UK than white women.

Lawler has promoted the episode with an Instagram post and plenty of her followers seem perturbed by the choice of guest. One comment reads: 'Why are you deleting everyone's comments?' which suggests that the more critical responses to Clemmie's appearance on the podcast are being removed. Lawler denies this, however.

Underneath her original post, Lawler has written: 'Hey all, I appreciate there are a lot of comments below and I am aware of the recent controversy that has been around Clemmie. However, we made this podcast to help figure out the things we didn't know about having kids - Clemmie, as a hugely experienced midwife, was a great person to talk to, to help us understand more.'

'From what I've seen, Clemmie's acknowledged that she made a mistake and I would certainly say that she's paying the price, given the backlash she's experiencing. It’s not my place to speak about the in's and out's [sic] of what's happened, but a lot of the stuff being said is symptomatic of the "cancel" culture that seems to be out there at the moment. We all make mistakes. I've made massively stupid mistakes and if social media was around 10-15 years ago, I would've probably been equally "cancelled".

'Just because someone is a public figure, it doesn't make them immune from experiencing the same emotions, having the same weaknesses that anyone else feels and equally, making bad decisions. If you feel so strongly about it that you don't want to listen, then I respect that and it's your choice. But Boj & I both believed that the episode we recorded added value to the series and to delete it or not air it for something unconnected would be doing listeners a disservice.'

There are also plenty of comments below the post from those who are willing to forgive Hooper, and seem delighted to have her back. 'Actually loved listening to this' writes one listener. 'Regardless of anything that’s happened, Clemmie is still an experienced midwife and mother so makes perfect sense to feature her on a podcast where the subject is whether or not to have a baby. I don’t really care what she did, it wouldn’t stop me listening to a podcast.'

Last week we crunched the numbers on Clemmie's Instagram to see what the actual fall-out from the scandal was, and found that she had lost less than 4% of her following. While the podcast was almost certainly recorded before the Tattle.Life scandal, its release might signify that Clemmie is slowly dipping her toes back into the waters of social media. Her husband, Simon Hooper, has returned to normal posting.

You can listen to the episode here.