“Death Of Mr. Ugly”: The Sun Under Criticism For Suicide Article Regarding Body Dysmorphia

By Quinny Tan  •  22 Mar 2022 in News

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‘Death of Mr Ugly’ and #dontbuythesun is currently trending on Twitter.

The Sun, a tabloid from the UK, is under a lot of backlash for the insensitive way it broke news of the death of a man who suffered from body dysmorphia.

The website ran the news with the headline, “Death of Mr Ugly”. According to Andrew Jackson, his late brother died from suicide due to body dysmorphia.

My brother killed himself, he suffered from body dysmorphia, they ran a story with the headline “Death of Mr Ugly” #dontbuythesun

— Andrew Jackson (@andyjax63) March 19, 2022

People are expressing their displeasure with the publication by using the hashtag #dontbuythesun after Jackson published his side of the story on social media about how the website defamed his brother.

Body dysmorphia is a mental health condition in which a person spends a lot of time worrying about their appearance flaws. We were unable to locate the exact news on the website, so the story may be deleted or edited.

“Oh, my God, that’s terrible. The Sun is something I would never buy. The litter box is the only place where it belongs,” a netizen tweeted. While another wrote, “It should not be printed in the first place.”

Simultaneously, the story has evoked a portion of the publication’s misadventures in irresponsible journalism over the years.

On July 4, 2003, The Sun published a front-page story titled ‘Swan Bake’, alleging that asylum seekers were slaughtering and eating swans. It was later revealed to be untrue, one netizen tweeted.

The netizen also wrote, “The Sun sparked outrage in June 2018 when it criticised Isobel Steele, a 17-year-old actress, for her dress at the British Soap Awards. Steele’s decision to “cover-up from head to toe” was criticised in the paper, which advised her to “flash a bit of flesh.”

As of now, The Sun has taken down Mr. Ugly’s article from the web but no apology has been published at the time of writing this article.