Olympic great Susie O’Neill mistakenly told listeners of her radio show that another former footy star had come out as gay.
But it was what happened on-air after her gaffe that prompted the AFL’s first openly bisexual player Mitch Brown to hit out at the show.
O’Neill was talking on the Brisbane breakfast show Nick, Luttsy & Susie on Nova 106.9 on Monday morning when she revealed ex-Lions player Mitch Robinson had come out as gay.
O’Neill said: ‘Mitch Robinson came out recently, in the AFL.’
Her co-host David ‘Luttsy’ Lutteral quickly tried to correct her.
‘What? I don’t think it’s Mitch Robinson,’ he said.
O’Neill realised her mistake and said: ‘It’s the wrong name. Sorry, sorry, sorry!’
Pictured: The moment Susie O’Neill realised she made a mistake in saying former Lions player Mitchell Robinson recently came out as gay
Robinson (pictured) called in to the show to remind listeners he hasn’t come out, but it was the voice he used which prompted another AFL player to hit out at him
The AFL’s first openly bisexual player Mitch Brown posted the above message on Instagram blasting the show’s hosts for laughing at Robinson putting on a camp voice
The announcement prompted Robinson to call in to the show to straighten things out with the two-time Olympic gold medallist.
‘Hey guys, it’s Mitch Robinson here,’ Robinson said in a stereotypically gay voice as he humorously played up to the situation.
‘I’ll have to go on my Wikipedia page and change the bios. It’s probably not the best thing that I’ve woken up to.
‘A few text messages here and there and I had to explain myself. I appreciate it that Susie O’Neill knows my name, that’s pretty cool.’
But the light-hearted situation took another turn on social media as Brown criticised the voice Robinson used while impersonating a gay man.
Brown, who came out publicly as bisexual in August last year, wrote on Instagram that Robinson and the show could have done ‘a bit better’.
‘I know people will say I’m being too sensitive here, but what’s the punchline here?’ he wrote.
‘A stereotype of what queer people sound like? Why are we still accepting that everyday stuff as ok?’
Ex-West Coast player Brown (pictured) has called for change in footy culture around sexuality since retiring
Brown wasn’t happy to hear Robinson impersonate a gay man as he called in to the show
Brown, who played 94 games for the West Coast Eagles between 2007 and 2016, has been a vocal advocate for systemic change within football’s culture.
Before he came out as bisexual, the AFL was the only major professional men’s sporting league worldwide never to have had an openly bisexual or gay past or present player.
Brown said that the weight of hiding his sexuality had taken its toll on his AFL career, where homophobic insults and conversations were commonplace on and off the field.
‘When I was growing up at school, the word ‘gay’ was thrown around constantly… For a man in Australia, [it was seen as] probably the weakest thing you could be,’ Brown said last August.
Brown made news earlier this year when he criticised the culture around alcohol at AFL clubs.
He claimed booze was everywhere around footy clubs and drinking beer after matches had become ‘normalised’.
‘The first thing that was in the room, that we’d sing our sacred song around, would be a carton of beer. That became normal,’ he said.
‘You hear the coach say we are here to win, then you associate that with going into the rooms and singing that song around that carton of beer. That becomes the thing you want to do.’
Daily Mail has contacted Nova for comment.
