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Abbie Chatfield unleashes on Sonia Kruger's controversial Logies win: 'Disgusting'
"People who are TV hosts are so beloved for being this vanilla version of themselves."
Abbie Chatfield has unleashed on Sonia Kruger after the presenter's controversial Gold Logie win late last month.
Sonia, who hosts several shows on Channel 7, won Australian TV's biggest honour, beating Leigh Sales, Julia Morris and fan favourite Hamish Blake.
Abbie slammed the presenter for 'disgusting' discriminatory comments against the Muslim community in 2016, where Sonia said she would like to ban Muslim immigration in Australia.
"Yeah, no, Sonia," Abbie said on her podcast, It's A Lot. "It’s very easy for white feminists to be like, ‘A woman won. Aren’t you happy a woman won?’ Well, not someone that made discriminatory comments on the Today Show about Muslim people.
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"How about you use the privilege you have as a white woman to not discriminate against people of colour?"
Abbie continued, saying, "You’ll be burnt forever in the eyes of Australian media if you have OnlyFans, or if you’re overtly sexual, or if you speak your mind too much, [but] everyone will just push something under the rug if you say something outwardly discriminatory."
Sonia's 2016 comments came following a terror attack in France, with the presenter saying on the Today Show: "There is a correlation between the number of people who are Muslim in a country and the number of terrorist attacks."
"Now, I have a lot of very good friends who are Muslim, who are peace-loving, who are beautiful people, but there are fanatics," she added, saying she would like to see [immigration of Muslim people] stopped now for Australia. Because I want to feel safe, as all of our citizens do".
Abbie said many people on Australian TV haven't had the pressure to speak about political issues or their own views in the earlier stages of their careers, unlike many new presenters now.
"People who are TV hosts are so beloved for being this vanilla version of themselves... then they’re asked about political issues, and they don’t see how what they’re saying is crook," she said, adding, "People in traditional media haven’t spoken about political views throughout the early stages of their career.
"I obviously speak about politics more than other people in mainstream media, but people who are not typical political commentators are [now] asked their views when big events happen."
Abbie shared the Black Lives Matter movement and Roe v Wade as examples of huge political events that have happened in recent years.
"Sonia comes from an era... where they never had to comment on anything, and therefore they have these views that are simmering for years and fermenting. But they’re not actually expressing their views, and they're not allowing themselves to be exposed to other views because they're just doing a one-way medium, and that is TV hosting."
"The traditional media route is to not speak about sex, politics and religion ever, and now they're being thrust into be social commentators because people who are younger are asked to comment on things... and they just think it's OK to say s**t like this and honestly, everyone on that desk, unless someone calls them out directly, people who are in this bubble of white privilege in Australian media aren't going to f***ing say anything, they're going to say, 'Oh, that was a bit racy, Sonia,' not go, "That was extremely racist,' unless they have someone younger, or someone who is willing to risk calling out one of the biggest people in Australian media on the desk in the moment, and is educated enough to respond straight away.
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"It just slips through the cracks and no one seems to give a f**k."
Sonia never apologised for the comments, even though the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal initially said that her comments could have encouraged “hatred towards, or serious contempt for, Australian Muslims by ordinary members of the Australian population”.
In the end, Sonia was found not guilty of racial vilification because the Muslim community in Australia does not have “a common ethno-religious origin”.
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