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Osher recalls pap tactics that led to Press Council win

In 2016 Osher Günsberg was snapped and humiliated but the Press Council ruled it an invasion of privacy.

Osher Günsberg has spoken about 2016 paparazzo shots taken in Bali during filming of The Bachelor 2016.

Speaking to ABC’s Reputation Rehab he recalled the intrusion and body shaming around photos which were published online, later found to be a breach by the Australian Press Council.

He told ABC he went diving on a day off in Padang Bai, about two hours from filming, he was snapped when changing into a wetsuit by a long lens.

“There was no traffic around on the way in there, but as soon as we arrived, a scooter arrived right after us, right out in the open,” he recalled.

“Bear in mind at the time, I was quite ill, and I was suffering a pretty decent episode of mental ill-health and I was on a lot of medication. I was on two different kinds of anti-psychotics and SSRI and Amino ketone and (with) these drugs, you put on a lot of weight. You can do all the exercise you want, but they mess with your insulin response. So I was putting on about a kilo a week. I was pretty big. Even Mick Fanning and Steph Gilmore do not look good when they’re getting into a wetsuit.”

After returning to Australia a photographer taunted him over the scene.

“He’s coming at me going, ‘Osher! We got you mate. We got you good. Did you have a good time in Bali? You have a good time diving in Padang Bai? We got you mate, we got you real good!’

“The glint in his eye was the same glint that the high school bullies who would pinch and nipple-crip on me in the change rooms after PE… it’s the same kind of blood lust.”

Günsberg believes he was set up in Bali.

“I was so ashamed. I’ve never, until that point, taken my shirt off in public. Never. Never. I’ve always been so, so horrified of my body, from when I was in Weight Watchers as a little kid to growing up… I was ashamed of myself so ashamed with how fat I was… I was body dysmorphic and weird an it was absolutely horrible,” he insists.

“It was just awful to be publicly shamed like this.”

The Reputation Rehab episode dissects tactics used around pap shots, clickbait and TV targets, including Günsberg and Karl Stefanovic.

Günsberg had a victory from a Press Council complaint in 2017, the first against the publication, which required articles to link to their finding.

“There have been hundreds, thousands of women that have had this happen to them. But I’m the first person they found in favour of. As a man….”

Reputation Rehab airs 9:05pm Wednesday on ABC.

2 Responses

  1. This is how the photographers make a living and hope for that one shot that will set them up for life…..Sadly there seems to be no rules…they can use long lenses from a long way off and just invade anyone’s privacy…even on their own property….It is long due for an overhaul I feel.

  2. Jeez, when you see these folk in their tv roles, it’s hard to imagine the turmoil going on in their lives. They seem so fragile in reality. The photographer sounds particularly evil and obnoxious….

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