Shannon Matthews was body shamed in the “sick” new musical movie about her abduction.
She was just nine-years-old when her mum orchestrated her kidnap for financial gain in 2008 and a dark comedy about her disappearance has now been released – and here we revealed the most offensive parts.
And while the Amazon production was an ethical minefield, one thing that stood out was the way Shannon was described by the lead characters.
One line of the song Shannon, Shannon (Where Can You Be) goes: “You’ll know if you find her, she’ll give you a scare, she looks just like a cabbage patch doll, but with greasy hair.”
Later, the detective leading the investigation into missing Shannon says: “Often, if a kid is not found in the first few days, it could mean they have been murdered by a nonce. Shannon’s chubby head were on the front cover of the newspaper.”
(Image: Neil Vary)
She was also put down while her mum Karen Matthews, played by Samantha Hindman, called a ‘Madeleine McCann appeal hotline’ to beg for donations.
Shouting down the phone, she says: “I’ve got a missing kid too, just because mine is not blonde and cute, you think it don’t matter that she’s been abducted by a sex case?”
The Shannon Mathews Musical… The Movie was blasted even before it was released – with one ex-prisoner who served with women like Karen Matthews giving her take.
Dewsbury West councillor Amma Anwar previously said it was “sick and bang out of order” while Loose Women panellists were furious over the “traumatic sing-along”.
Shannon Matthews: The Musical started as an audio CD in 2010 before it reached the stage at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2022.
(Image: K**t and the Gang)
The movie version was filmed in Yorkshire and it pokes fun about the girl’s bizarre disappearance.
Shannon was just nine when she vanished in Dewesbury, West Yorks. But the little girl was found alive three weeks later in the home of Michael Donovan, the uncle of Karen Matthew’s then boyfriend. It was revealed that the pair hatched the evil plot to pocket the £50,000 reward money.
Despite the fallout, independent artist K**t and the Gang told the Daily Star his aim was to try and produce something genuinely funny before worrying about the potential ethical issues.
He told us: “One driving factor in making this was that comedy these days, especially TV comedy, never seems to be judged first and foremost on whether it is funny so rightly or wrongly we tried to put that ahead of everything else.”