Trisha Goddard stuffed mouth with toilet paper to stop crying after racist bullies called her the n-word

Trisha Goddard has opened up about her experiences of racist bullying as a child.

Appearing on Piers Morgan’s Life Stories, which airs on Thursday (25 February) night, the chat show host said that she was subjected to racist abuse and called slurs when she was just nine or 10 years old.

“I got really good at my primary school going in the loo. You get toilet paper and you stuff it in your mouth so they don’t hear you crying,” she told Morgan.

“Because if they hear you crying while they’re chanting the n-word outside, then you’ll get it worse.”

The presenter recalled one incident in which a male student hit her school lunch out of her hands, forcing her to do “the Oliver Twist thing” and go back to the catering staff to ask for more.

“I said, ‘Excuse me’ and she said, ‘No, you’ve had.’ Everyone was laughing so I got up, I ran out and I sat on a step and I was crying and crying."

Admitting that the bullying was a daily occurrence, Goddard said she reported what was happening to a teacher only to that she needed to toughen up if she was going to “stay here”.

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“I must have been nine or 10, crying and crying,” she said. “And I can see this teacher now… he sat down next to me and he said, ‘You’ve got to understand, you’ve got to toughen up. We people in this country, we don’t want people like you here.

“When I was nine years old and my teacher, who watched me get hit, was telling me this was my life… I remember that distinct moment because I thought, ‘No one’s going to look out for you for the rest of your life. You are in charge of you.’”

Last year, the TV presenter suggested that ITV’s daytime shows only employ black presenters in “jokey” roles.

Piers Morgan’s Life Stories airs Thursday 25 February at 9pm on ITV.