News / Politics
Kirsten Rees says she wishes her husband was not mayor
Marvin Rees’ wife said she wished her husband was not Bristol’s mayor after the family received serious threats, a television documentary reveals.
BBC Two viewers will see Kirsten Rees admit feeling torn over her partner’s role and the toll it takes on the couple and their three children.
The mayor, meanwhile, tells the programme he carries around “quiet, controlled anger” over social injustice, which he says is “very dangerous” for a black person to reveal.
is needed now More than ever
Marvin Rees also hits out at ‘kill the bill’ rioters for “trying to steal” a year of pride away from the city after it navigated through a turbulent period of tension following the toppling of Edward Colston’s statue.
Speaking to the film crew of Statue Wars: One Summer in Bristol from their home in Easton in August 2020, Kirsten Rees, a personal trainer and Pilates instructor, said they had just returned from a fortnight’s holiday when police knocked at their door to inform them of direct threats against the family.
“They’ve had anti-terrorist intelligence – those three words together,” she says in the documentary, which is being broadcast on Thursday.
“They say ‘It’s low level but we want you aware’, so you think, ‘Okay, yes’, but your head is spinning because you are thinking of all the what-ifs? People know where we live.”
She said each threat they received led to increases in their security.
Asked if she ever thought, “I wish he didn’t do this?” she replied: “No. Well, probably, if I’m honest, yes.
“I like being away by the sea, I grew up by the sea, so I want to escape, run away, but also you’ve got to do something in life, not just swim every day in the sea.”
Earlier in the documentary, the mayor is filmed with hate mail, including letters, a golliwog badge and an old, racist children’s book, at his office in City Hall.
He said: “I find it irritating. It’s the classic keyboard warrior type thing and that irritates me because it’s gutless.
“I always have that back-of-thought, though, what if this is a serious person? I always think about my family. I’ve got to do the responsible thing for my family. I don’t lose sleep over it. It is what it is.”
Statue Wars: One Summer in Bristol is on BBC Two at 9pm on Thursday
Main photo: Uplands Television / Sam Gibson
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