X Factor star Lucy Spraggan and her girlfriend travelled to Malta for some well-earned rest.
However, they were forced to cut their dreamy getaway short after receiving ‘threatening’ homophobic abuse from locals.
Their holiday didn’t even last three days, the singer, 30, shared on Instagram as she opened up about their horrifying ordeal.
The songwriter said she was ‘so looking forward to Malta’ after hearing it was ‘so LGBT friendly and progressive.’
But after landing in the wrong part of town upon their arrival, it wasn’t long until the couple were made to feel uncomfortable in what was ‘clearly a party destination’ where ‘everywhere they went someone shouted “lesbians” at them.’
‘I shouldn’t have to say this but we weren’t holding hands and both looked pretty femme, didn’t even have tattoos out so these blokes have some gaydar,’ Lucy wrote.
She said the lady working on their hotel desk ‘completely understood’ why they didn’t want to stay there, allowing them to leave early.
But that same day, the pair faced more lesbophobia from a waiter in a restaurant in Valletta.
‘The way you girls are sitting is so sexy, you are making us all hard,’ he said to them ‘word for word.’
‘It makes me so angry that all we could do was f***ing laugh in disbelief and calmly ask for the bill’ the musician wrote.
The waiter tried to get them to stay so, trying to diffuse the situation, Lucy replied: ‘We have more to discover here.
‘How about I discover her with you,’ the waiter responded.
Later on, the girlfriends had more trouble when the door on their hotel balcony wouldn’t lock.
Maintenance promised to fix it tomorrow, but, understandably, they ‘didn’t want to stay in a room that doesn’t lock,’ despite being assured that the area is ‘very safe.’
And the trouble didn’t stop there.
Sitting down with an ice cream, some local men invaded their space to make inappropriate hand gestures while shouting in their direction.
The Tea & Toast hitmaker said ‘there were quite a few other things to add.’
‘I am sick to f***ing death of feeling threatened as a woman.
‘Sick to f***ing death of feeling threatened as a lesbian.
‘I am sick to f***ing death of being spoken down to by men across the globe,’ she vented.
The couple ‘came home and went to the spa,’ admitting that, while ‘Malta was beautiful, their ‘experience was not.’
Lucy revealed that Malta’s Minister for Equality had been in touch, as well as members of the Maltese community.
They shared how ‘upset’ they were to learn of their traumatic experience, and ‘apologised on behalf of the homophobic and misogynistic men’ they encountered.