Aussie surf star Ellie-Jean Coffey has hit back after her Instagram video led to her getting death threats from people in India who wrongly accused her of going to the bathroom in a sacred lake.
The 30-year-old posted a clip two days ago showing her going to the bathroom off the side of her boat in Western Australia’s rugged Kimberley region with a crocodile just metres away.
Captioned ‘a croc almost got me’, the clip went viral on social media in India as she was accused of defecating in a lake near the city of Udaipur, which was described as ‘a sacred and scenic site’ by an Indian news account on Instagram.
The Swadesiofficial Instagram account re-posted the clip with the caption ‘Can she be deported?’ and a text overlay reading ‘American tourist seen po*ping from boat into lake in Udaipur!’
‘I started getting comments from people questioning whether I was in India but I didn’t know what was going on, so I just left it,’ Coffey said.
‘I’ve had people telling me I should be deported from India – and I’ve never even been there.’
Pictured: Surfer Ellie-Jean Coffey in an Instagram video she posted showing her going to the bathroom off the side of a boat in Western Australia’s Kimberley region
The clip got a very different reaction on Indian social media (pictured) when it went viral for all the wrong reasons
Coffey (pictured) was left shocked when she received abuse and even death threats when she was wrongly accused of defecating in a lake in India
But once the furore blew up, Coffey captioned the clip, ‘I’m setting the record straight: im Australian: this is the Aussie outback: IT WAS NOT IN INDIA.’
‘I would just never do that,’ Coffey told News Corp.
‘It’s so wild how fast a lie can spread online.
‘I can’t believe it spun out of control like that.’
Viewers of Coffey’s clip voiced their anger online, with one demanding that she be arrested and heavily fined.
‘Civic sense died here,’ a second commenter wrote.
‘Imagine if an Indian does the same thing abroad,’ another added.
Other comments included ‘Deport back to Europe’, ‘You’re classless’, and ‘this should be on CNN international & BBC news’.
The 30-year-old has never been to India and said, ‘It’s so wild how fast a lie can spread online’
Coffey (pictured) has previously opened up about how mental and physical abuse from powerful men drove her out of competitive surfing
Coffey explained that the video only shows her urinating, and it was recorded by a friend who thought it would be a bit of light-hearted fun.
She was on a nine-month trip from Tweed Heads on the NSW/Queensland border to Broome on WA’s coast when the clip was taken.
‘There was a 1.52-metre crocodile nearby so I took the risk and went, while keeping my eye on it,’ she said, explaining that she and other passengers on the boat usually relieve themselves when they’re in port, or failing that, by using a bucket.
Coffey has posted multiple videos from the trip on her Instagram, showing her fishing for barramundi, enduring a swarm of sandflies and bathing in some rapids after ‘not having a shower for a week’.
Originally from the Gold Coast, Coffey came second in the 2012 Junior World Surfing Championships as she started her rise to stardom.
In 2020, she revealed her dreams of winning her way to the top of the sport were crushed by being ‘mentally and physically’ abused by powerful figures in surfing.
‘At first I thought and believed I was the luckiest girl in the world to be living such a life, and not long after that, the darker side of the surfing industry soon revealed itself to me, and it was terrifying,’ she said.
‘The abuse, both mentally and physically, I endured during my teenage years far away from home with adults in positions of power has haunted me my whole life.
‘It was a pretty horrible time in my life. I think people in positions of power tend to abuse that power, and I was only a young girl, and it’s taken me a long time to recover.’
