Heartstopper star Bradley Riches has responded to trolls who have mocked his Emmerdale character Lewis Barton, who is autistic .

Lewis is the soap’s first neurodivergent character, and the long-lost half-brother of Ross Barton.

Bradley Riches, who plays James McEwan in LGBTQ+ Netflix drama Heartstopper , has been open about his identity as a gay man with autism. He told ITV News: “The writing for Lewis so far has been perfect. For people to say, ‘Oh he’s the most vile person in the village’, no, he’s not. You just don’t understand him.

“A lot of neurodivergent people get viewed like this all the time: misjudged and prejudged. He is autistic, he is openly gay, and I think a lot of these comments [stem] from [them] not meeting or knowing someone like that.

“The more we expose people to t

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