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Commando unleashes on photographer

Biggest Loser trainer gives paparazzo a serve -in a week of unruly behaviour by photographers.

2015-01-15_2340It can be very enticing footage when someone manages to film a celebrity unleashing a tirade of abuse on a surreptitious camera.

And that’s just what Steve “The Commando” Willis is facing today, with footage of him berating a paparazzo published by News Corp.

But the scene gives us very little context to why Willis found it necessary to let fly. I’m guessing he had a very good reason.

The article goes to great lengths to describe The Biggest Loser trainer’s fury, reportedly “After being photographed having lunch along Challis Avenue in Potts Point last week across the table from girlfriend and fellow Biggest Loser trainer Michelle Bridges.”

Plenty of expletives are dropped by Willis at photographer Ben McDonald.

But there is next to no detail about the lengths the photographer went to in the lead-up to the incident. Instead Willis is guilty of “choosing to lunch at cafes and restaurants renowned for celebrities and subsequent camera lenses.”

The same newspaper tells us that last weekend police were called to Bondi Junction Westfield after a paparazzo continued to take photos of him and his daughter.

Photographers, like everybody else, have a job to do. But there are lines not to cross (filming the children of celebs should not be one of them) and experienced photographers should know the limits.

Willis’s manager Lisa Sullivan, said, “Steve is generally a really easy going guy. He understands the role paparazzo play in the media and at times even shares a laugh with them. However sometimes they cross the line, which in this case resulted in words being exchanged”.

3 Responses

  1. If he reacted because the pap was photographing his child without his permission, good for him. But if he was upset he was photographed having lunch with Bridges then suck it up. It was his choice to have an affair and public interest is part of the consequences.

  2. Craig, the very name paparazzi derives from a photographer who used to insult, impede and annoy celebrities in order to get shots just like this.

    You should also see the footage shown on Media Watch a year or 2 back of the camera crews prodding, poking, impeding and generally doing everything they can to get a rise out of a person who had just had a conviction overturned or something similar but because the alleged offences involved minors 3 camera crews kept hitting him with mikes, cameras, shoulder for a good 2 blocks as this guy tried to get away.

    There is more with that 9 cameraman “just doing his job” of tripping, abusing and getting the face of another guy.

    Media is far from blameless.

  3. IMO there is no good reason to berating (or bash) anything for doing their job. How often do we see news camera men attacked outside law courts with other crews filming every moment.

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