TEN defends Tomic casting amid questions about duty of care

He may have lost his biggest drawcard without notice by I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here producer Alex Mavroidakis is defending a decision to include Bernard Tomic in the show, amid questions about duty of care.

“I used all my ammunition just to get him to stay for that one extra night,” he told radio hosts Fitzy & Wippa.

“Half of me is angry with him because he’s messed up a whole lot of plans that we had in place,” he said.

“But half of me wishes him all the best. He’s obviously confused as to where he is in life. He’s obviously a freakish talent and he just wants to get back and play tennis.”

He said Tomic composed a text message three days before he got on the plane and that he’d changed his mind about appearing in the show.

“So he was obviously not in the right head space at all… I think watching the Australian Open play out… he had a wake up call that ‘I should be in the Australian Open semifinals.'”

But while Tomic’s text was never sent his exit from the series has raised further questions about TEN’s duty of care and psychological testing in Reality TV.

Psychologist Dr Carr-Gregg said producers should never have cast him in the first place.

“He appeared to me to be in a very low mood. I wouldn’t go so far as to say he was clinically depressed but I would say he didn’t seem to me to be in a psychological state to be put through what he was put through,” he told News Corp.

“I question the wisdom of having someone who’s so young — he’s only 25 — and whether or not he’s in a good psychological space. I would question the wisdom of the producers of putting someone in that scenario who is not 100 per cent.”

But last night on The Project Tomic denied being too fragile to participate.

“No, no, no I was not too in a mentally [fragile] state to do this, I mean I got to the top 16/17 of the world’s best tennis players in one of the biggest sports in the world and you can’t do that if you’re not mentally strong,” Tomic said.

“I think they’re (viewers) all confused and I think no one’s really come off this show within the first couple of days. Don’t get me wrong one day I’m going to come back and finish this beautiful show because it was an amazing experience.”

Meanwhile he also made claims about corruption within Tennis Australia.

A TEN spokesman said, “All celebrities undergo vigorous medical and psychological testing before entering the jungle. Network TEN takes its duty of care very seriously and if any concerns were raised by experts after this testing, a celebrity would be advised not to take part in the program. While contestants are in the jungle, they have access to psychologists at any time. Similarly when they leave, they all have a meeting with the psychologist.”

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Source: News Corp, Fairfax