Eddie McGuire has spoken out about his controversial comments over the last couple of years in an interview with GQ magazine.
He spoke about the incident in 2006 when an affidavit revealed plans to sack journalist Jessica Rowe, which he publicly denied before the affidavit was exposed.
“What are we going to do about Jessica?” McGuire had said. “When should we bone her? I reckon it should be next week.”
In the interview with GQ, McGuire denies saying ‘bone’ and rather ‘burn’. He expressed regret over the incident.
“I know Jessica’s been saying how hurt she was by it and I’ve deliberately not wanted to pick the scab on this. She was the drive-by victim in all of this – she didn’t deserve any of it, and I feel deeply about that.”
When it came to his 2013 comments about AFL player Adam Goodes, in which he suggested on-air that Goodes should star in a ‘King Kong the musical’, he has put the incident down to pain-killers.
“I mean, the night before, I’d been hosting a function raising $300,000 for Indigenous scholarships [as chairman of former AFL star Michael Long’s foundation] … So I was doing all that and I should have stayed in bed that day. I haven’t really said this before, but I was on massive painkillers and crutches.”
He went on to express regret for the comments, which still haunt him.
“… Did I lie awake over the Adam Goodes thing? Does it still rankle with me to this day? Absolutely. It burns me to the core that what I said would add any level of pain to Adam or the Indigenous community.”
McGuire has also recently faced outrage over his comments about ‘drowning’ sports journalist Caroline Wilson. The public’s reaction caused Eddie McGuire to apologise, and his friend and colleague Sam Newman defended him, saying he shouldn’t have to apologise over ‘a joke’.
Eddie McGuire also defended Sam Newman’s character in the GQ interview, saying he’s fighting back against ‘political correctness’.
“It breaks my heart sometimes that he hasn’t really been allowed to show himself on TV in a way that he can – he’s unique, highly intelligent and highly respectful. He has a great capacity to cut through the political correctness – sometimes he goes too far, but generally he has an opinion and it’s based on scholarship.”
You can read the full interview with McGuire here.
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