Category — Charlotte Dawson

Charlotte Dawson denies bullying on 60 Minutes tonight as she discussed the dreadful twitter troll attack that ended up with an ambulance and police being called to her apartment early last Thursday morning. She ended up being hospitalised.

A Twitter follower says she alerted Lifeline who then alerted the Police after she saw Ms Dawson tweet a picture of a hand full of pills and a tweet which indicated she may take her own life.

Ms Dawson said in the interview she was very drunk and the next thing she remembers is the police and ambulance were there. However this since-deleted tweet would suggest she was suicidal. Ms Dawson is receiving medical care.

No one wants to see anyone in such mental anguish.

What has been met with cynicism were reports she had given an interview with 60 Minutes within hours of pleading for privacy and on the day she had been admitted to psychiatric care. The interview was paid for. It was a very strange PR decision indeed.

However Ms Dawson did look shaken in the interview where she talked about the effects the troll attack had on her.

Charlotte Dawson is a polarising personality, something that I don’t think is a negative thing, she has many fans, but also many people that are not so enamoured by her.

There has been a lot of compassion, support and concern for Ms Dawson from media commentators and her fans. Though since this incident there has also been a lot of comments on blog posts and forums about how some of her behaviour online is inappropriate. It should be noted Charlotte is an ambassador for Community Brave an organisation whose aim is to combat cyberbullying.

Here is a snapshot of that behaviour in a blog post I wrote last Tuesday querying whether Charlotte Dawson was the best person to be a spokesperson on cyberspace etiquette.

The cyber attack on Ms Dawson occurred Wednesday after she had been in the media talking about how she outed a “twitter troll” to her employer as well as discussing her new book. Because of this media coverage this woman has now been suspended with pay.

I would like to take the time to reflect on the other woman involved in this matter, Tanya Heti. Is she deserving of this excoriation by the national media or is she collateral damage in this sad saga?

There has been little concern about the mental state of this person who has been publicly humiliated and embarrassed nationally on radio, TV and print for the past five days. She is now infamous.

There is no doubt the tweet made nearly a month ago was unsavoury. I can’t find the original one but here is one that and shows she was trying to create mischief.

After Ms Dawson retweeted a tweet of Ms Heti’s  a fan of hers was deeply offended as her fiance had hung himself. Once this was raised Tanya Heti retorted back that she were her fiance would hang herself too. Not very classy behaviour by Tanya.

However on the night in question it appears she did end up apologising.

Ms Heti has not been on Twitter since shortly after that incident nearly a month ago.  Ms Dawson possibly thinking the apology was insufficient tracked down where Ms Heti worked contacted her and then reported the incident to her employer at Monash University. After the media onslaught of last week Monash have suspended her with pay whilst they investigate the incident and Ms Dawson has been praised in the media for her handling of this issue.

It is up to the individual to decide whether Charlotte’s crusade was appropriate however most of the mainstream media last Wednesday appeared to think so. Others may think after the apology was given to the offended party that it should have been done and dusted and the fracas left on Twitter. It is no surprise there is differing viewpoints on this.

It should be noted Charlotte’s actions did not merit the trolling attack on her last Wednesday night. However I am not sure Tanya should be smeared with the same brush as the Twitter trolls of last Wednesday night, however others might.

This case is very much in the public interest to be debated by the community and the media as politicians are now discussing whether legislation needs to be enacted and if this is the case the whole scenario needs to be closely examined.

However what was interesting that 60 Minutes did another interview over the weekend with  Charlotte asking about her online behaviour. Was this second interview the result of 60 Minutes finding out about the wave of online criticism questioning Charlotte’s cyber history?

In response to the question “So you have never been abusive and you have never bullied?” Charlotte responded:

“I don’t think so. I think people diminish what bullying is. Bullying is this extremely threatening behaviour and it is constant and it makes people feel threatened and terrified and I can’t think of anyone I have done that to.”

Unfortunately for Charlotte a lot of people would disagree with that statement and since she is a high profile Ambassador spokesperson for an anti-bullying organisation she is under scrutiny on this issue.

A person who said he was scared by her “can someone please kill Bryan Boy” tweet was Bryan Boy. The America’s Next Top Model judge tweeted he was scared and it was reported he contacted Police. She retweeted this tweet and he was mocked because of it.

I hope Charlotte recovers from this and gets back to her sparky best, however since she is a high profile role model on this issue maybe once well she may wish to reflect on her own online behaviour, acknowledge this,  and then she would make a great anti-cyberbullying ambassador for Community Brave.

In the meantime let us hope Tanya Heti is being supported by her friends and family as well as even though she is no cleanskin herself there is no doubt the last week would have placed her under extreme stress.

It is ironic that Charlotte Dawson took such exception to a tweet someone made to her that she rang up their employer to expose them, possibly with the motivation of getting them fired when she herself is not such a cleanskin on Twitter.

The Australian Next Top Model judge took exception to this tweet ”excuse me @MsCharlotteD on behalf of NZ we would like you to please GO HANG YOURSELF!!!” Charlotte retweeted it to her followers to shame her.

As the news.com.au story states:

Taking Twitter trolls head on, the Australia’s Next Top Model judge sent a ‘please explain’ email to the woman and her boss after Dawson’s loyal follower was set upon for revealing she had lost her own partner to suicide.

Dawson’s practice of re-tweeting abusive messages as a form of broadly shaming the trolls drew the widow into defending the former model against a tweet which read: “excuse me @MsCharlotteD on behalf of NZ we would like you to please GO HANG YOURSELF!!!”

The follower leaped in, admonishing the dangerous remarks, posting: “my fiance hanged himself HOW DARE YOU SAY THAT TO ANOTHER HUMAN BEING”.

The Monash staffer replied: “If I was your fiance I’d hang myself too #gohangyourself.”

This tweet occurred after a story was published where Ms Dawson slammed New Zealand in an interview when she was publicising the upcoming release of her memoir. She said: “New Zealand is small, nasty and vindictive. It’s a tiny, little village … a tiny country at the end of the earth.”

For the record I think that tweet to Ms Dawson and her follower was completely unacceptable.

However Charlotte Dawson has also made some slurs on Twitter herself including one which asked that someone kill the now America’s Next Top Model judge fashion blogger Bryan Boy. At the time of her tweet it was not known that Bryan Boy was going to be a judge on the iconic reality show.

When this turned into a mainstream media furore Ms Dawson went on Sunrise to say her tweet was to be taken in humour, but is it? If a teenage girl aimed that at another teen girl it would be seen as cyber bullying. In fact Charlotte is a spokesperson for Community Brave a great organisation whose aim is to eradicate online bullying and homophobia. Is this tweet that Ms Dawson wrote acceptable for an ambassador for this charity to write?

She also claimed on Sunrise that Bryan Boy and Patty Huntington were “obsessed” with her. A quick google of both their blogs had me wonder where this persecution complex came from as it revealed no mention of her on Bryan Boy’s blog,  and on Patty Huntington’s Frockwriter (who I collaborated with on UNCUT) she has been mentioned her four times. The last mention was two years ago.

Though it should be noted the animosity appears to stem from a story on Frockwriter reported here about comments she made about the then seventeen year old Cassi Van Den Dungen on social media site Facebook. A Sunday Telegraph columnist called this Facebook diatribe bullying at the time and the same article raised the issue that the person was a minor.

@canofwormstv Charlotte Dawson is a bully, she influenced her followers to attack me telling me to kill myself/get an eating disorder etc

— CLAIRE (@claaIiyah) August 27, 2012

@canofwormstv Hi, Charlotte Dawson will be on your show next week. Earlier, she publicly harassed me & condoned bullying from her fans

— Matty (@MJP0) August 27, 2012

Maybe Charlotte Dawson is not the most appropriate person to be talking about what is or is not appropriate on Twitter or cyberbullying.

Also was she contacting Monash University, the person’s employer, to try to get this person sacked?  I am sure she would not like Bryan Boy talking to the creator of Next Top Model Tyra Banks about her inappropriate tweet about him, as I am sure she would not like to lose her judges position on Australia’s Next Top Model for a cyberspace indiscretion.

Just for full probity earlier this year there was a fracas between Ms Dawson and myself on Twitter. However I will leave the last tweet to her.

Good point Charlotte something that has crossed my mind after receiving several vitriolic messages myself….

UPDATE: The girl from Monash University has now been suspended with pay.

The first episode of Celebrity Apprentice Australia was like the warm up for what is to come for the following episodes. We can see there is going to be conflict between Dicko and Ben Dark, and also Tania Zaetta with what looks like everyone.

For someone with a chequered career she does appear to have very healthy self esteem.

“Did you know I did Baywatch?” she said again and again. She probably needed to keep reminding everyone  of this as it was the last time she appeared on an Australian TV screen.

Fortunately for her David Hasselhoff is extremely diplomatic and said  ”it was a long time ago and we didn’t really work that much together so I don’t really know Tania”.

Though to be fair to Tania she was not the only one of the so called celebs who thought their profile was higher then it was.

Jason Akermanis said “As famous as I am around Australia… ” Newsflash I had barely heard of him and definitely would not recognise him in the street.

The first challenge was to Pamper Pooches or dogs, and they had to do their prep in doggie day care. In fact I did not think it was a great advertisement for doggie daycare as the dogs just ran around in a room with a cement floor and that was where they had to toilet as well. No wonder when the girls team walked in it stank.

The guys team was made up of The Hoff, Dicko, Ben Dark, Vince Sorrenti, Jason Akermanis and Nathan Joliffe. The girls team was Patty Newton, Marion Grasby, Fiona O’Loughlin, Charlotte Dawson, Lauryn Eagle, and Tania Zaetta.

Marion thought that Dicko was one of the bigger egos on the show, clearly she has not met Ben Dark before.

Also Nathan thought Dicko was the backstabber of the group.

The twist was the guys had to pick the girl team captain, and vice versa. The girls picked The Hoff thinking because he is such a celebrity he would be too distracted by people coming up to him to be able to manage properly.

The guys team picked Tania Zaetta to be project manager and she took the job very seriously indeed.

The girls after a heated debate called themselves Team Fortune. Charlotte Dawson must have downloaded a latin app onto her ipad as she was coming out with some names with gravitas, however the only problem no one knew what they meant.

Team Platinum  was the guys team name, and Dicko said it worked for them as it reminded them of a lap dancing bar.

Now let’s talk about The Hoff. He was very impressive and is clearly taking his role on the show seriously. He is not just dialling it in, however he was on the show doing a lot of PR. He was everywhere, on the phone, swimming at Bondi, and considering he only flew in the day prior his energy did not flag. Also props have to be given for the Hoff Dog phrase.

On the day of the challenge, the guys team charged $500 for  a wash, and the girls charged $100 but these challenges are all about the corporate donations most of the time not what happens on the ground.

The girls were getting a lot of dogs to wash in fact Patti Newton was working like a dog apparently she ended up scrubbing thirty dogs.

Lauryn Eagle was running around in a bikini which personally I think is a tad demeaning and unnecessary but she did have a rocking body.

Fiona was struggling her only donation fell through and then she went across to the guys team to try and negotiate  a quarter of their earnings as that is what she thought how much they had the advantage of having The Hoff. They obviously declined to negotiate on this issue.

Considering there is that saying never to work with children or animals, there was very little drama from the dogs. The main dramatics came from Charlotte Dawson when she had to pick up a dog poop, other then that there was no leg humping or dog biting.

In the boardroom it was revealed Tania and Dicko raised the most money individually which was over $45000 each.

Also in the board room Mark Bouris was joined by his son Dane Bouris, and Deborah Thomas. Now Dane at this stage is showing he is no Ivanka Trump or even Donald Jr, however it was his first episode so he would have been feeling nervous.

Mark Bouris was determined to stir up trouble and asked what Charlotte thought of Tania Zaetta. She said  she thought she was going to be all show no go, but she was extraordinary. Most of the other team mates agreed.

Well except for Lauryn who  said ”I don’t really work well under the conditions under a person who is controlling and domineering”. Which is interesting considering there were rumours her ex-boyfriend was exactly like that.

Fiona admitted she put all her eggs in the one basket and once she got one donation she went on washing dogs, however it did not come through and she was now vulnerable.

The guys team were asked whether they relied on The Hoff was being too much of a celeb and not project managing. Dicko defended the guys team strategy and said “If Elvis comes and joins the band you don’t give him a tambourine and stick him up the back.”

And as The Hoff said he may not have the corporate connections here but “use me, use me, use me”.

Nathan Joliffe surprising brought in the biggest single donation out of all contestants it was Zhu Shoes and his former girlfriend, Erin McNaught was there as well. To get the money the guys had to put on heels, but as a publicity stunt it did not match the Pauline Hanson in underpants one that was the first challenge of the previous series of Celebrity Apprentice.

Unfortunately for the girls they raised $88287 to the guys  $143,362 which meant The Hoff gave $231,649 to the Starlight Foundation. His work here is done…

Back in the board room it was revealed Charlotte raised $5500, Marion raised $2000, Fiona raised $325, Tania raised$49,000, Patti $17,000, and Lauryn raised $14,000.

The other issue that was discussed was the price point of their dog wash. It was an issue the girls were charging $400 less than the guys. Marion defended it by saying they had not wanted to make it prohibitive, however as Dicko said as they were watching it via TV that was exactly the point of it.

Tania brought in Lauryn and Fiona back into the boardroom with her and Fiona was fired. Mark Bouris really had no other choice.

It’s a dirty job but someone has to do it… After not being able to lob onto the first challenge of Celebrity Apprentice Australia Season two, I thought I better hustle to the Celebrity art auction that was open to the public. Oh and try to get a bit of action with The Hoff.

I took my two young interns who had to be sacked, if you think Gen Y’s have issues then just you wait for the Gen Z’s to hit the workforce they are prima donnas. Going by the George Calombaris school of industrial relations I paid them with an ice cream and they still were not happy.

Anyway today it was the Celebrity Art Challenge and it was open to the public.  There was the girl’s team plus The Hoff – clearly they are sharing him around, and the boys team going to head to head in an art challenge where the celebs had made art pieces to sell charity. Whoever wins will have made a motza  for their charity as the prices were high.

What is like on the set of reality TV show? Well basically the shows are made in an editing suite as there was not a lot of action happening on the ground. Just small little vignettes that will be edited into something fast paced. There is at least three days of filming that goes into one episode.

Marion Grasby was project manager for the girls team and Dicko for the men. Like last season to make the money it was all about the corporates. The girls had roped in Staedler the stationery company and the guys had Roses Only, also BSC some sort protein bar turned up with a cheque.

Charlotte Dawson who has clearly found the elixir of eternal youth is looking fantastic – just to show I am an equal opportunity blogger and think of the male readers here is Charlotte looking foxy.

Tania Zaetta also appeared to have dabbled in the dark arts of botox as does The Hoff whose nickname should be the fantastic plastic.  Tania Zaetta must be this season’s villain as there is not a lot else going on there. Though her career does limp along so she must have some fans or a very good agent.

The intern took a photo of Dicko and as I was on a middle aged man rampage also he is the reality TV veteran of the show he has been in four. Even Nathan Joliffe indulging in body art could not turn my head.

However what I did see were the celebrities determined to win the challenge as well as make an entertaining reality show and the viewer should reap the benefit of this.

Celebrity Apprentice Australia Season Two will air on Channel NINE in 2012.

After weeks of rumours Celebrity Apprentice Season Two has now been announced, and one name they managed not to leak out was Patti Newton.

Patti Newton will be an interesting choice as she was very popular on her stint on Dancing With The Stars, however the rigours of this show are much harder and the ‘real’ Patti might slip out.

The Daily Telegraph have announced the cast as:

• David Hasselhoff – does he need an introduction?;
• Marion Grasby – former Masterchef contestant;
• Jason Akermanis – AFL player;
• Lauryn Eagle – Water skier and model;
• Nathan Joliffe – Winner of season one of The Amazing Race Australia;
• Fiona O’Loughlin – Comedian;
• Tania Zaetta – faded starlet and Bollywood star;
• Ian ‘Dicko’ Dickson – Former Australia Idol judge, and former host of Can of Worms;
• Ben Dark – reporter on Getaway;
• Vince Sorrenti – comedian;
• Charlotte Dawson – judge on Australia’s Next Top Model.

It is a good cast guaranteed to attract a diverse viewer. Dicko is always popular as is Marion Grasby. Charlotte Dawson will ensure she gets a lot of screen time, and chances are she will be looking hot as last week she sequestered herself up at a health farm.

Fiona O’Loughlin and Vince Sorrenti will provide some laughs. Hopefully Nathan Joliffe will show more personality then he did on The Amazing Race but then when your are suffering chronic jetlag it is probably hard to razzle.

Tania Zaetta may get cast as the villain, and I expect Ben Dark may want to keep his “dark side” contained on camera.

My only issue with The Hoff being on here, is will he actually take the challenges seriously.

The show start shooting this week.

What do you think of the cast?