Posted in: BBC, TV | Tagged: doctor who

Doctor Who Star Millie Gibson: "Horrific," "Awful" Dealing with Rumors

Doctor Who star Millie Gibson on the "horrific" experience of not being able to defend herself from rumors, even when she knew the truth.

By now, you know the deal. Before we can know what's going to happen with Ncuti Gatwa's Fifteenth Doctor regenerating into Billie Piper's Sixteenth Doctor (maybe?), we have to know what's going on with the BBC and Showrunner Russell T. Davies' Doctor Who. Unfortunately, that might still take a while. What that does is give us some time to look back over the two seasons of the new era from a number of perspectives. For this go-around, Millie Gibson (Ruby Sunday) is getting a chance to open up about what it was like having to deal with a lot of unnecessary gossip drama – especially when she knew the truth.

As many of you will remember, Gibson's run on Doctor Who was anything but smooth when it came to the press and social media. First, there were rumblings that the actress was demonstrating "diva" behavior and attitude on the set. That was followed by rumblings that plans were in motion to replace her as Gatwa's companion before their first series ever hit screens. The addition of Varada Sethu (Belinda) to the cast only seemed to add fuel to the social media and gossip press fires. By the time the final credits rolled on the second season finale, "The Reality War," it was pretty clear that Gibson's Sunday didn't disappear and actually played an essential role in the two-season overarching storyline.

Speaking with The i Paper, Gibson revealed that she knew she would be returning for the second series when the "diva" rumors started, but had to keep the news to herself to avoid long-term spoilers getting out. "I couldn't be like, 'It's a lie!' [because] they'd be like, 'Well, that's spoilers.' It was quite hard to stand up for myself without ruining the show. I was like, 'Oh, this is horrific because it just looks like it's true," Gibson shared, noting that not being "able to speak up" and having to let the rumors continue was a "tough" position for her to be in.

"Oh, it was awful," Gibson continued, explaining how it felt to deal with that much pressure at 19 years old. "What was frustrating was the amount of people that were like, 'Oh, sorry, this has happened mate,' and I was like, 'Yeah, it's not [happened], but thank you," she added, sharing an example of the kind of reactions she would receive from folks who believed the rumors that she was being let go from the show. One person Gibson could rely on during her run on the show was Gatwa, who's had more than his fair share of experience with social media and gossip press rumor mongering. "He's had his time with that, and it's just about being able to try and shut it out," Gibson said of her co-star.

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