Julia Hartley-Brewer asked if she'd still choose Andrew Tate's life over Greta Thunberg's

Controversial TalkTV host Julia Hartley-Brewer has come under fire after being accused of “mocking” Greta Thunberg’s autism, with the teenage climate activist getting into a public spat with commentator Andrew Tate earlier this week.

When the former kickboxer bragged about his 33 cars on Tuesday, and asked for Thunberg’s email address to send “a complete list of my car collection and their respective enormous emissions”, the campaigner responded by telling him to send her an email at “small d*** energy [at] get a life [dot] com”.

The “immense burn” received widespread praise by Twitter users, while Tate continued to try and land a comeback by thanking her for confirming “that you have a small penis”.

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“The world was curious. And I do agree you should get a life,” he tweeted, somehow forgetting the fact he was the one who chose to pick a fight with an actual teenager. In a bizarre turn of events Tate has since been arrested in Romanian as part of a human trafficiking and rape investigation.

In amongst all of this, Hartley-Brewer decided it would be good to chip in with thoughts of her own, quote tweeting Thunberg’s putdown and adding: “’I’d choose Andrew Tate’s life *every single time* over the life of a half-educated, autistic, doom-mongering eco-cultist. And the only car I own is a diesel Tiguan.”

Hartley-Brewer’s decision to lump in a comment about Thunberg’s autism with her insults was widely condemned online, with one father of an autistic child describing the broadcaster’s choice of words as “disgusting” and calling for her to be “cancelled”.

“My autistic son is worth a 100 Julia Hartley-Brewers,” commented another.

A third wrote: “As an autistic person myself, I am disgusted at Julia. And the only car I have is a bus pass.”

Meanwhile, Guardian columnist and political commentator Owen Jones added: “Just like Tate, it must really rile Hartley-Brewer that this 19-year-old autistic woman has achieved so much, and isn’t just some vile right-wing shock jock.”

Hartley-Brewer later went on to take down the post in favour of a reworded version with the word “autistic” removed.

She said: “I’ve deleted my previous tweet that mentioned Greta’s autism because – although I only referred to it because she states it in her own Twitter biog – people decided to take offence at a fact. Even though they had no problem with this woman calling a man ‘small d***’. Yawn.”

That being said her replacement tweet is still causing controversy with some asking if she still stands by the claim that she'd still choose Tate's life “every single time” following his arrest.

Thunberg shared more information about her autism back in April last year, explaining she was diagnosed back when she was 12.

“Today, so many (especially girls) remain undiagnosed. The reasons for that are often lack of awareness, prejudices and the fact that many still see autism as a ‘disease’ or something that has to hold you back,” Thunberg wrote.

So we’re pretty sure Hartley-Brewer’s comments were far from helpful, but when are they ever not?

The teenager’s thread continued: “Autism is not a disease. It’s not something you ‘have’.

“It simply means that you are a bit different from everyone else. And in a world where everyone strives to act, think and look the same – being different is truly something to be proud of.

“That’s why I’m very proud to be autistic,” she said.

More power to you, Greta.

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