Hester, who has given £10m to the Tories in the past year, said in a 2019 meeting reported by the Guardian that he did not hate all black women.
But he said that seeing Abbott, who is Britain's longest-serving black MP, on TV meant "you just want to hate all black women because she's there".
Abbott released a statement yesterday saying she is a "single woman and that makes me vulnerable anyway, but to hear someone talking like this is worrying".
The MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington said: "It is frightening. I live in Hackney, I don't drive, so I find myself, at weekends, popping on a bus or even walking places, more than most MPs... For all of my career as an MP I have thought it important not to live in a bubble, but to mix and mingle with ordinary people. The fact that two MPs have been murdered in recent years makes talk like this all the more alarming."
She added: "I'm currently not a member of the parliamentary Labour party, but remain a member of the Labour party itself, so I am hoping for public support from Keir Starmer."
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