Her ex-boyfriend Akim Nicholson had taken their break-up badly, and was frequently emailing her.
But this message was different.
"Check your Snapchat," it said.
A feeling of dread rushed over Holly.
Hands shaking, the mum of two opened the social media app and what she saw made her blood run cold.
Wannabe rapper Akim, 35, had secretly filmed Holly while they were being intimate.
In an act of so-called "revenge porn", he had taken screenshots of parts of her body and shared footage on the platform. "I felt sick," Holly, 36, a social worker, says. "Everything just stopped around me. My heart stopped.
"All I remember of that moment is saying 'Oh my God! Why is he doing this? Why?!""
SHOCK
Holly just had time to panic about how this might affect her daughters, aged 14 and 16, before the phone notifications began flooding in.
Akim had tagged Holly and urged others - including a person with 2,000 followers to share the post.
She says: "To my horror, it didn't end there. It actually went to thousands and thousands of people.
"It was shared via Snapchat, TikTok and also WhatsApp. He even tagged my account to the video. I was devastated.
"I was screaming inside my head and wanted to claw my way into the phone screen to make it stop.
"He told me, "You're finished' and 'Your whole year just got ruined. He said he was going to make me go viral." Holly, from Birmingham, first met Akim when they were teenagers.
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