Teenage advert star victim of online death threats

The 15-year-old, who can only be identified as Sven for his own safety, appeared alongside cartoon tiger Tony in the much-hated commercial.

In it, he sings a repetitive jingle as he leads a gang of children around a town while performing a wacky dance.

After it was launched, irate internet users posted messages such as 'He's a revolting despicable child - he deserves to die' and there were even rumours he had killed himself.

But angry Sven has now hit back from his home in Johannesburg, South Africa.

He snapped: "Can't these fools distinguish between me and a character in an advert?"

Since the advert was first screened four months ago one lads mag has even pictured him with rifle-sight crosshairs on his forehead.

And internet surfers have made cruel threats such as 'The Frosties kid deserves the death penalty', 'Death to the Frosties child', 'That kid deserves to die' and 'The kid deserves to get bullied to death'.

Sven, who is a talented gymnast and is in his country's Olympic development programme, admitted filming the advert had been irritating.

He said: "If you think watching the ad was annoying you should have tried working on it.

"It was so irritating hearing the jingle over and over again. After five days I was going up the wall."

The actor was told by a friend about the internet backlash to the advert, although the commercial has not been screened in South Africa.

He added: "I had a look on the net and was so surprised. Why would people want to humiliate someone they don't even know? I was given a charcater to portray - it's not who I really am.

"I'm not going to go out and commit suicide because of things people are saying."

Kellogg's, who tried to stop media interviews with Sven, defended the controversial advert.

A spokesman said: "The vast number of consumers like the ad. It's been a great success."

But one person who the advert won't persuade to change breakfast cereal is Sven who loves Coco Pops.