Media personalities react to ‘clickbait’ stories

TV faces have responded to online ‘clickbait’ articles that have caused them distress this past week.

Unflattering shirtless photos of The Bachelor host Osher Gunsberg were published on several sites while Em Rusciano was the subject of a story calling her a “hilarious nightmare” filming The Big Music Quiz.

Gunsberg told his Hit 105 radio co-hosts, Stav Davidson and Abby Coleman, that he likened the photos to bullying.

“I’ve been on television since 1999,” he said.

“Never once have I used my physique as currency … Never have I gone, ‘Here’s my mad rig’.

“If anything I’ve been really open about the struggles that I have had with my mental health and with weight loss.”

The photos appeared on news.com.au and Daily Mail, with the headline, “The Bachelor host Osher Gunsberg shows off his ‘Bali belly’ on the latter.

“My job is not to be the hot bloke,” Gunsberg insisted.

“There’s a reason I never sang on Idol, there’s a reason I’m not taking my shirt off on The Bachelor. I’m not that guy. I’ve never been paid to be that guy.”

Meanwhile media personality Em Rusciano has quit writing for news.com.au after being the topic of an interview in which Big Music Quiz Darren McMullen described filming with her as a “hilarious nightmare.”

“She was a nightmare. She just went on the most bizarre tangents and we were like, ‘Em, it’s a family show, this is never going to make it to air,'” McMullen joked.

But the former Idol discovery did not react well on the day the article appeared. On Facebook she wrote:

“The reason I’d hit out-of-control was because the website I write a weekly column for chose to use an unkind clickbait headline about me. It triggered a tidal wave of past hurt.

“TV host Darren McMullen had called me a ‘nightmare” to work with in an interview about an episode of a music quiz show he and I were on. It was apparently said in jest, he’d meant that I was a hilarious nightmare or something to that effect. I wonder if he could’ve chosen another adjective? Perhaps: “Hilarious trouble maker” or “Hilarious magician” or “Hilarious anything other than the word nightmare” but I digress.

“When I read the headline: ‘Em Rusciano is a nightmare to work with’ it felt visceral. I was instantly taken back to a place where I was 25, in a meeting with my boss and being told that I was impossible to work with and made everyone around me unhappy.

“Why am I super touchy over this? I’ve spent my whole career being called difficult. Look there’s no denying that in the past I was, however I was also young, scared and clueless. I think I’ve managed to turn that around with maturity, hindsight and a shit load of therapy.

“Yes: I’m a person who needs to ask questions, who has a strong sense of self and I’m someone who refuses to take shit. If I were a man I’d be called assertive, alas I’m not.”

Via: Mumbrella, News.com.au