Today’s Brooke Boney’s big moment upstaged by technical glitch: ‘I’m going to vomit’
Today star Brooke Boney faced one of her greatest fears this morning when she was pushed out of a plane in the name of charity.
The reporter, who describes herself as so "absolutely terrified of heights" that she doesn’t even like standing on balconies, plucked up the courage to do a tandem skydive on live TV, despite admitting before the jump that, “I feel like I’m going to vomit”.
Unfortunately for viewers at home, much of the big moment was missed due to a technical error that saw the live broadcast freeze right as Brooke took her leap of faith.
Viewers saw one frozen screenshot of Brooke sitting in the plane, with host Allison Langdon joking, “She’s frozen with fear!”, as she and co-host Karl Stefanovic tried to fill the gap with small talk.
“It’s amazing we have a live shot inside the aeroplane - not so live at the moment it keeps freezing on us,” Ally said, to which Karl added, “It’s like a selfie at the moment.”
By the time the live stream was back up and running, Brooke had already made the jump and viewers only saw an empty plane.
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Moments later, the camera cut to a shot of Brooke’s hair flying up while she was free-falling through the air. The angle was later adjusted to show the presenter’s face just as the parachute was pulled.
Once Brooke was safely back on the ground, they were able to play the footage of her jumping out of the plane as the reporter said it was freezing cold up there and that she "felt like a giant baby".
She said thankfully her skydiving partner was talking to her the whole time, although he didn’t take up her suggestion when she asked, “Are you sure I can’t face the other way?”
Brooke took the plunge to raise $20,000 for the mental health charity Gotcha4Life which works to prevent suicide.
She later posted the footage we were supposed to see on Instagram writing, "I bloody did it. I cannot express how terrified I was before this but when I got the call up from @karlstefanovic_ and @gusworland to help raise money for men’s mental health @gotcha4life I couldn’t say no."
Brooke was put on the spot on Friday morning when Today hosts Karl and Ally told her she would be skydiving.
Sharing a photo of herself with the two hosts on Instagram earlier that morning she wrote, "Currently standing in a car park in Wollongong waiting to see what these two have in store for me," before later adding, "UPDATE: I’m skydiving".
Fans were quick to sympathise with her fears, with Today Extra's David Campbell saying, "Noooooo" and influencer Eleanor Pendleton writing, "omg", while others wished her lots of luck.
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