Emmerdale actress Lisa Riley has spoken out after discovering a series of AI-generated images that falsely claim she is pregnant. The 50-year-old, best known for playing Mandy Dingle on the ITV soap, took to Instagram on Monday afternoon to address the posts.
The images show Riley, who is in a relationship with musician Al Benković and has no children, holding up a scan suggesting she is pregnant. Another shows her holding a baby, apparently to convince social media users she had become a mother.
Star's angry response
She wrote on Instagram: "THIS HAS TO STOP!!!!! It’s absolutely horrendous!!! Saying that I’m pregnant again!! How is this allowed it makes me so upset……what world do we live in that these lies, and more lies are allowed to be put in the public domain. I’m sick to death of it now!!!"
Fans offered support in the comments, with one writing: "Those fake accounts should be taken down. I understand how hurtful this is." Another said: "WTF!!! is wrong with people, shouldn't post fake crap it's not nice for the person getting it especially when you don't need," and a third wrote: "Horrendous , that someone should [do] this."
Previous AI incidents
This is not the first time the Loose Women star has spoken out on the issue. Earlier this year, she discovered another AI-generated post claiming she was pregnant. She said: "Someone had made a photograph with AI, bearing in mind all my struggles, me and Al, to make something say I was pregnant. Family members believed it and what upsets me the most is that I spoke so openly about the fact that I couldn't get pregnant and then I woke up to all that."
During an appearance on Loose Women alongside Kaye Adams, GK Barry and Denise Welch, the former Strictly Come Dancing star explained she has "no control" over what AI can do, calling it a "horrible" experience. She said: "It's insanity and it really, really hurts. People were saying it didn't matter that I was 49, but it's my life and I've got no control. People were saying congratulations but I can't get pregnant and it's horrible."
Fertility struggles
Riley, who has also appeared on I'm A Celebrity and in dramas such as Fat Friends, Waterloo Road and Three Girls, has previously spoken openly about her fertility struggles. Earlier this year, she admitted she would have done anything to become a mother but concluded it "wasn't meant to be".
She said: "I’ve spoken a lot about the fact that, me personally, being a Catholic, it was drummed into us that you don’t use contraception and you don’t have sex before marriage and everything, and that was in my head a lot. Then later in life, I did choose my career and [fertility tracking] apps weren’t available then to look at your cycle, and I waited and waited and found the right person in Al, and when it came to the time of trying, I couldn’t fall pregnant. I look now at your happiness with your husband and the baby, and you have got that career, it’s amazing, and I wasn’t that lucky and tried everything until the point where Al turned to me and said, ‘You have to stop the IVF treatment, because it’s diminishing you and taking your personality away, you’re trying too hard’.
“Sometimes in life, it’s not meant to be. And I have to sit with you girls here today knowing that, however, I’m very lucky because of my family unit.” She added that her nephews and niece have become "part of my jigsaw", saying: "When I couldn’t get pregnant, and feeling so rubbish in myself, and I’ve said this a lot, I felt like a jigsaw with a missing piece."
