LadBaby has broken his silence on the “toughest time” of his life as he revealed trolls threatened to “stab him” over stealing rumours.

The influencer, real name Mark Hoyle, shot to fame alongside his wife Roxanne, also known as LadBaby Mum, and the down-to-earth couple have enjoyed huge success thanks to their videos on Instagram and TikTok. They made history with their five consecutive Christmas number ones, which raised money for the Trussell Trust, which supports food banks and people in need across the country.

However, Mark and Roxanne said the “rug was pulled from under us” in 2021, as they prepared to release their fourth Christmas single Sausage Rolls for Everyone, with special guests Ed Sheeran and Elton John. Rumours began circulating online that the couple had pocketed money raised from their Christmas hit singles over the years, and in their new memoir Our LadBaby Journey, they described the “immense toll” the unfounded rumours had on their mental health.

Roxanne said there was a backlash ahead of the release of their Christmas single, and she blamed a “singer/songwriter guy we’d never heard of” for being behind the campaign of abuse. The couple claimed he had an issue with LadBaby’s single being released on the same day as his new song, and posted a video criticising them across social media “to whip up some anti-LadBaby feeling” to stop them “getting to number one”.

Mark and Roxanne said they then received “messages that came from a place of pure malice and there was so much of it”, and blocking the “worst offenders” didn’t stop the abuse. “It was like whack-a-mole. I’d get rid of them – and then five more would appear,” he sadly shared. Mark then revealed that the worst was yet to come, as the singer who had taken offence with the release of their Christmas single then made further allegations.

“He accused us of using the food banks ‘to hawk records’ and gain ‘lucrative sponsorship deals’. And, most despicably of all, to ‘bolster’ our bank balance. He was saying we were profiting from the charity singles. None of it was true. Not one bit,” Roxanne fumed.

Mark said he felt “permanently on edge and felt extremely unsafe”, and said he and his family faced abuse when out and about in their home city of Nottingham. “We’d hear people in the street saying, ‘Look it’s those f***ing d***heads’, and then whisper about ‘the charity money’. We were getting threatening DMs and emails saying, ‘We know where you live’, and I started not wanting to leave the house,” Mark said, as he revealed there were more terrifying threats to come.

‘There were messages from people saying if they ever saw me round Nottingham, they were going to stab me,” he shared, as Roxanne said she saw messages from online trolls who threatened to follow her husband home “and kill him”. She said police told them there was “nothing they could do”, and in the end, they simply refused to read any more comments and messages. “It was the worst time of my life. We were being accused of something we hadn’t done, but denying it seemed to make it even worse,” Mark heartbreakingly added.