Laura Hamilton has spoken out after scammers used Jonnie Irwin’s recent passing to con money out of loyal fans.
The 42-year-old presenter was forced to post a video for her followers to report any donation pages claiming to be her.
Earlier this year, the mother-of-two ran the London Marathon to support the WellChild charity and to honour her late friend Jonnie who passed away in January from lung cancer.
Laura had created an official Just Giving page for the donations, however found out others had been set up after she completed the marathon pretending to be Laura.
The A Place In The Sun presenter explained that she felt sick when she heard about the scammers, she told The Sun: ‘I raised five and a half grand for them, but after I ran the marathon there were people saying “do you know there are people setting up scam pages saying’I’m still fundraising for the marathon’ and still trying to get donations.”
Laura Hamilton has revealed ‘sick’ scammers used Jonnie Irwin’s death to con her fans out of money (pictured with the late presenter and Jasmine Harman, right)
Earlier this year, the mother-of-two ran the London Marathon to support the WellChild charity and to honour her late friend Jonnie who passed away in January from lung cancer
‘They weren’t legitimately for the charity and that just makes me feel sick that people were willing to do that when I was running.
‘I had an official Just Giving page and then there are scammers that are sucking people in saying “oh yeah we’re still trying to fundraise” and that is so terrible.’
At the time of Jonnie’s passing, Laura addressed her social media silence, saying she had been quiet on the platform out of respect for the tragic passing.
She shared an album of gym snaps with her 195,000 followers, reminding them that ‘life is short and we must make the most of every minute’.
The heartfelt post was captioned: ‘You might have noticed I’ve been a little quiet on my socials out of respect of a friend and work colleague that we lost. It’s a reminder to us all that life is short and we must make the most of every minute.
‘This year whilst I’m running the London Marathon for @wellchild, I’ve decided I would like to use my platform to raise some money for some other charities too, so watch this space…
‘I woke up this morning with the intention of running 20k, but I only made it to 14.4k as I had to head to some meetings…I’m slowly getting there and even running this distance is a massive achievement for me.
‘I had moments during my run where I wanted to stop but I kept thinking about the cause and my reasons for doing it… if you are running the marathon like me or taking part in any challenge for charity, keep strong, remember the cause, YOU’VE GOT THIS’
Laura had created an official Just Giving page for the donations, however found out others had been set up after she completed the marathon pretending to be Laura
The A Place In The Sun presenter, 41, also addressed her social media silence, saying she had been quiet on the platform out of respect for the tragic passing
Jonnie confirmed in November his lung cancer had spread to his brain after first being diagnosed with the disease in 2020. He passed away on January, 26, at the age of 50.
The A Place In The Sun star told how the reason why he kept his battle with cancer a secret for two years was to ‘pay the bills’ and look after his family.
He said: ‘The only reason I kept it secret is because I’ve got to earn, I’ve got to feed my babies, pay the bills.
‘And as soon as you say you’ve got cancer, people just write you off.
‘I had to live with it as a secret. It was really difficult living with such a massive cloud above me and pretending to everyone else.
‘For the first year and a half I could work. Unfortunately, one of the companies claimed they couldn’t insure and didn’t renew my contract. It left a massive hole in my income.
‘I felt like I’d been thrown on the scrapheap. They’d recruited within a week and then I could see some else doing my job.’
Jonnie confirmed in November his lung cancer had spread to his brain after first being diagnosed with the disease in 2020. He passed away on January, 26, at the age of 50
