Radio host cuts off caller after he repeatedly calls her ‘darling’ and ‘love’

A TalkSPORT radio presenter has been praised online for standing up to a “sexist” caller who repeatedly referred to her as "darling" and "love".

Lynsey Hipgrave was discussing the recent controversies surrounding FA boss Martin Glenn on a segment with fellow sports presenter Danny Murphy on Monday when the offending call took place.

Phoning in to offer his views on Glenn - who was forced to publicly apologise after he compared the Star of David to a swastika - the caller was quickly cut off by Hipgrave after he failed to address her by name.

“Hello Gareth,” the presenter begins, to which Gareth responded: “Hello love”.

Poking fun at his reference to her as “love”, Hipgrave asked: “what are your thoughts on this, love?”

Gareth said he thought Glenn should be “sacked”, to which Hipgrave asked whether he thought an apology would be enough for him to keep his job.

“Excuse me, darling,” he responded, before Hipgrave interrupted him saying; “Alright, you don’t need to call me darling, I’m not your darling.”

However, her warning clearly went amiss as Gareth then revealed that he's a Liverpool fan before calling Hipgrave “love” again.

After this, Hipgrave decided to end the call:

“Gareth, do you know what? Cos you can’t speak to me properly I’m going to sack your call off love”.

The radio host later tweeted about the incident, clarifying that it wasn’t what the caller said but the way he said it that led her to cut him off.

“Genuine terms of endearment are lovely but the ‘scuse me darling’ was just condescending,” she wrote.

“He can’t say I didn’t warn him.”

Her tweet has amassed more than 5,000 likes so far, prompting fans and sporting stars to show their support by lambasting the “patronising” caller.

“Yesssss @lynseyhipgrave1 brilliant!” wrote Alan Shearer.

However, some criticised Hipgrave for her response, citing it as an “overreaction” and calling her “soft”.

“I just don’t see an issue,” wrote one person on Twitter.

“He’s probably spoken this way his whole life as it used to be deemed respectful and a term of endearment. Now in 2018 everything is suddenly offensive even when it’s not intended to be.”

“Reeks of power trip to me!” added another.

TalkSPORT showed their support for Hipgrave by dedicating a segment to the incident on Alan Brazil’s Sports Breakfast show this morning with broadcaster Laura Woods as a guest host.

“It’s incredibly dismissive,” Woods said before adding that people who fail to see why Hipgrave felt the need to drop the call were being “a little bit naive”.

“As a woman I understand exactly what she was saying because the tone was incredibly condescending," she said.

“Women in sport go through this all the time, this is not an individual incident.”

When Brazil explained he didn’t really see why this man’s comments had been understood as offensive, Woods took the opportunity to highlight the inherent sexism women face in sport.

"I wouldn't expect you to understand how it makes a female feel because you're a man and you have a place in the industry that has never been challenged,” she said.

“Women continually have to defend their right to be in this industry and to be a voice in sport."