Do we like to bring down tall poppies? Seal has backtracked on his Twitter rant. Nikki Webster, AJ Rochester and Peter Ford discuss.
[Transcript only includes Nikki’s part of the discussion.]
DAVID KOCH: Nikki, you came into the public eye at a very young age. You were a girl at the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympics, you starred. Do you feel as though the media then tried to tear you down?
NIKKI WEBSTER: Well, you know, in this situation I don’t think it’s tall poppy syndrome, I think what it is is what Joel did was illegal and you know, the actions were taken accordingly. I think the tall poppy syndrome is where in Australia we put artists up, they become very successful, and then we try and knock down successful artists who are trying to make a career out of it, through the media because it sells papers.
So I don’t think that this is a true representation of tall poppy syndrome at all. I think what they did to me, as a fifteen-year-old girl, is a little bit of bullying and the tall poppy syndrome. And you know, we put these artists up on a pedestal and then when they get too big, and they’re not selling papers ’cause they’re too clean-cut, we knock them down and try and hurt them, and try and affect their outcome.
DAVID: How hurtful has it been for you, and do you actually regret now doing that role in the Olympics?
NIKKI: I don’t regret anything at all. I represented my country and I’m so proud to have had that opportunity. I don’t regret anything, and what I try and teach my children that I teach at my studios is you’ve gotta be the triple threat, you’ve gotta be strong and you’ve gotta take the good and the bad – you can’t just take the good.
But it did hurt me as a young girl, to be reading things from people that I thought I had a good relationship with. But since then I’ve had a lot of media personalities come and apologize and say, you know, you were the punchline of everyone’s jokes and we thought it was appropriate at the time, but looking back, as a 15-year-old girl, it’s not. It’s a media attack. So I have had a lot of apologies which I’m very grateful for.
MELISSA DOYLE: Yeah, good!
Source: Sunrise
Video: YouTube