★★★★★ 0/5

Foxtel apologises over CEO’s “dumpy” comment at House of the Dragon launch

“On behalf of Mr. Delany, the Foxtel Group apologises if his remarks were misunderstood and caused any offense.”

6
Leave a comment

Foxtel has apologised after a wisecrack at the launch of House of the Dragon by CEO Patrick Delany raised eyebrows.

Delany (pictured left) was giving an introductory speech to guests at Hoyts Moore Park when he recalled his early bemusement over Season 1 episodes of Game of Thrones.

“I was like, ‘What’s this show with the short, dumpy-looking girl walks into the flames… ?” he joked.

“Anyway a couple of years on I thought I better catch up.”

The reference to Emelia Clarke as Daenerys drew chatter amongst guests and has since attracted headlines including through Variety, Vanity Fair, IMDb, Yahoo, The Wrap, and more.

A spokesperson for Foxtel later said that Delany’s remark was meant to be self-deprecating, telling Crikey, “The aim was to convey that for him, Games of Thrones was something very different for television in 2011 and that Emilia Clarke went from relatively unknown to one of the most recognised and most-loved actors in television and film.

“On behalf of Mr. Delany, the Foxtel Group apologises if his remarks were misunderstood and caused any offense.”

6 Responses

  1. As I love useless information I thought I would add these GoT statistics. During eight seasons eleven GoT stars had body doubles mostly for stunt work but also for nude scenes, like Lena Headley’s ‘walk of atonement’ in season 5, where she used a nude body double due to her being pregnant at the time, Kit Harrington broke his foot and needed a whole lot of body doubles whenever he had to stand, but Kit didn’t use a double for his nude scenes, apparently Kit was exhausting himself training 3 times a day to keep himself in shape. Peter Dinklage also had a body double, who remains anonymous. Dutch actress actor Carice Van Houten did all her own scenes and used a hot water bottle to keep warm when nude as the Red Witch. Jason Momoa didn’t use a body double and chose to lighten the mood by using funny modesty socks when doing intimate scenes with Emilia Clarke. Actors do have a sense of humour I think.

  2. It’s really not excusable. It was a rude and thoughtless thing to say. An actual apology from the person that said it is needed. The PR driven non-apology only makes it worse.

  3. There are so many ways he could have made a “self-deprecatory” remark about his lack of knowledge of GoT, at one point, without bringing an actor’s body type (in his eyes) into it, and making a derogatory comment about said body. Just astounding, in this day and age.

  4. To clarify, Delaney attempted to promote a tentpole show by sharing his response to a young actor’s body, in so conveying his personal beauty standards, dismissed the comment as self-deprecating about not being able to recognise the magnet the show would become for his broadcaster until “a couple of years” later, and the broadcaster responds with a “if his remarks were misunderstood and caused any offense“. Huh. Weird decision making all round.

  5. It is mind blowing that Patrick would say that. Their HBO deal is one of the only reasons many people have Foxtel, so why run the risk of p!ssing them off?

    Not to mention the fact he hasn’t offered up an apology, yet the company apologised for him which is beyond bizarre. And how is that comment self deprecating? Do Foxtel PR even know what that term means?

    This whole thing is crazy. Enjoy the global coverage though Foxtel (that’s I heard about from an OS site first).

  6. I hate these non-apology apologies.
    “apologises if his remarks were misunderstood and caused any offense”

    No ownership of the actual comment. It was *you* that misunderstood it and *you* were offended.

Leave a Reply