Charlie Hunnam asks fans to stop attacking his girlfriend

Sons of Anarchy star Charlie Hunnam has a message for female fans who don’t like the fact that he has a longtime girlfriend, businesswoman Morgana McNelis: Why attack her out of “admiration for me? It makes no sense.”

Hunnam, who played Jax Teller on the long-running FX drama, communicated to fans via his Facebook page that a “group of immature girls [have posted] a large number of hard messages aimed at my long time girlfriend.” (The original post is no longer available, but readers can see it here.) Fans have made derogatory comments via social media about McNelis’ appearance, and have speculated about the state of their relationship.

“I would respectfully ask you to stop doing this,” the actor said. “She is an intelligent, beautiful, kind person who just tried to live a simple life and has nothing to do with the entertainment industry. If you want to talk sh–, talk sh– about me, leave her out of it. What is most confusing is that these negative and totally unprovoked attacks appear to be coming from the people who call themselves my fans.

“Think about the logic of this for a moment,” Hunnam continued. “This is a girl I love very much and have spent the last 11 years of my life with and hope to spend the next 60 years. She has been my loyal and supportive partner long before I had any success or money. Why would you attack her out of admiration for me? It makes no sense.”

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When some fans doubted whether Hunnam actually gave the message to Tina Lou, who reportedly maintains his fan Facebook page, the actor shot a video confirming his actions. “I asked her to post a message for me,” Hunnam said of Tina Lou in a video from March 5. “It comes from me. The fact you [she is] is getting harassed for doing that, is sort of the direct opposite of the message that I was trying to convey, which is simply that life can be very difficult without people going out of their way to be nasty to one another … try to be a little more kind. I don’t do social media … the genesis of it was a way to create a forum for people to make new friends … to express different ideas … not as a new forum for bullying which seems unfortunately to be an unpleasant side effect of it.”

Hunnam wrapped Sons of Anarchy in 2014. He’s set to star in Knights of the Roundtable: King Arthur in 2017.