Chelsea condemn 'unacceptable & hateful' homophobic abuse aimed at Sam Kerr and her fiancee Kristie Mewis after baby announcement

Blues star Kerr and USWNT midfielder Kristie Mewis, who have been together since 2021, announced their engagement last year. On Monday, the couple shared a beautiful collage of photographs on social media to announce that they are expecting a baby.

The happy announcement, however, turned ugly as the duo received hateful and homophobic comments from users, which forced Kerr to turn off the comment section of her Instagram post - as per The Guardian. Chelsea issued a statement condemning the “unacceptable and hateful” messages, while club skipper Millie Bright and head coach Sonia Bompastor also showed their solidarity with the couple.

Bright said: "If I wasn’t a footballer, I’d come off social media in a heartbeat, because there can be a lot of good things and it can also be overshadowed by so many negatives. There shouldn’t be any room in this world for comments like that or behaviour like that. I totally disagree with it. It shouldn’t be tolerated. Social media can be either the best thing or the worst thing in the world. It’s a real shame because it should be a place where people share memories and their joys in their life. Let’s hope that we can move forward and make the world a better place on social media and spread happy comments."

She added: "We’re just really happy for them both. Seeing the joy it brings to both of them, I think that’s what we’re all put on Earth for, to bring joy to one another, and we’ve not got the time of day for certain comments. Our focus is to spread happiness and support each other, regardless of everyone’s situation, and I think that’s a value of the club, a value of ours as people."

Blues boss Bompastor said of the social media abuse: "I just want to support Sam – we fully support her. This is just unacceptable to have these kinds of comments. Especially in our world, in 2024, that’s crazy for me to understand how people can react like this.

"But I just want to focus on the positives and give all my support to Sam and Kristie, and tell them we are really proud and really happy for them. As a mum, having the opportunity to become a mum, that’s the best news you can have in your life so I just want to focus on that."

Chelsea, who have won all of their matches across all competitions so far in the 2024-25 campaign, will be back in action on Wednesday night as they take on Celtic in the Women's Champions League. Kerr will play no part in the game, though, as she continues to recover from an ACL injury.