Horse Show's Best Dressed Man calls out online bullies

The Westmeath winner of Dublin Horse Show’s Best Dressed Men’s competition, Stuart Montgomery, has called out a business online after its Facebook page appeared to post hateful comments on his social media page.

The content creator and events manager who uses his ‘Stuart’s Select Style’ page to post all things fashion related, says he thought we were living in a new ‘Be Kind’ era, but instead are still suffering at the hands of keyboard warriors.

He feels that unless more people speak out about online bullying, nothing will change.

“Obviously I was thrilled to win, it was a complete surprise. It was one of the first events I had been to in a couple of years due to Covid,” begins the Mullingar man, who won The Longines ‘Elegance is an Attitude’ contest.

“It was an excuse to have a day out. I was looking forward to catching up with everyone and seeing all the style, it was just an added bonus that I won. And the prize is amazing, a Longines watch.”

It was on Saturday night while sitting at home however, that Stuart noticed the hurtful remark which was posted under a picture of him and his husband Derek Montgomery, of Montgomery Lifestyle.

“I was shocked at first and I actually had to read it again to make sure I was reading it correctly. It was in relation to our teeth. It said, ‘Where did they buy their teeth from, the joke shop’.

“This was on a Saturday night. I was shocked firstly, and even more so that it was from a business page. It took me my surprise that they would post a comment like that without even knowing myself, or Derek.”

Taking to social media, Stuart decided call them out on it, and screen grabbed an image of the comment, before the company deleted it the following morning.

“I said that I would have no interest in having any dealings with their business if that’s how they behaved online. I posted it because this needs to stop.

“People are just way too quick to comment online about everything really,” says Stuart, who adds that it’s not the first time he’s spoken out about this.

“Just weeks ago, I was posting pictures of the fashion at the Galway Races, and the Best Dressed Lady was trolled for her appearance and her outfit.

“I thought she looked absolutely amazing but there was a lot of trolling, a lot of people saying that the judges ‘should have gone to Specsavers’.

“I thought we had moved on from this, I thought we were in the era of ‘Be Kind’, but it really hasn’t moved on at all. Commenting on someone’s appearance, their weight, their dress, I thought we were passed it.

“What struck me most was that a lot of it was women commenting on the appearance of other women. Instead of tearing each other down we should be building each other up, regardless if it’s a man or a woman,” he says.

Support

After speaking out about his own experience, Stuart says that he received a huge outpouring of support.

“A huge amount of people came to my defence which was really nice,” says Stuart, adding that in calling out the other business online, he pleaded with his own followers not to “cancel” them

“I deliberately stated that I did not want any of my followers to go over and start sending them horrible messages, or for their business to be cancelled, because something like this could ruin their reputation, and I didn’t want that to be the case. I was literally just calling them out on their comment.

“And I know there is legislation for this but there’s still way too many keyboard warriors out there – people who hide behind blank profiles. They are saying things that they would never dream of saying to a person’s face."

No apology

Stuart says he has yet to receive an apology from the company, which said its page had been hacked.

Did it overshadow his Best Dressed win?

“People shouldn’t be vilified for winning a competition. I was sitting at home on Saturday night and still very much on a high for winning.

“I was still getting pictures in from the event and looking over them, and thinking it was such a great day and I had that ‘I still can’t believe I won’ feeling…To then to be brought down by that comment.

“But hopefully by me speaking out about it, it will encourage others to do the same. These people might be less likely to write nasty comments in future if there are repercussions.”