For these celebs and pollies, 2024 was a great year to shoot your boot

From Canberra courtrooms to the White House in Washington, and from the Olympics to Sydney radio studios, all manner of colourful types just couldn’t wait to pull the trigger.

Feet are made for walking – except during 2024, when feet worldwide copped an extraordinary amount of self-inflicted gunfire.

From Canberra courtrooms to the White House in Washington, and from the Paris Olympics to Sydney radio studios, all manner of colourful types just couldn’t wait to pull the trigger.

Let’s run through this year’s list of foot-shootin’ fools, beginning with …

PRIME MINISTER ANTHONY ALBANESE

No matter at who or what Albo takes aim, his attempts at a bull’s eye always end up with a bullet lodged somewhere between toes and ankle.

That $4.3 Central Coast mansion purchase, for example, would have been a terrific deal – except during a devastating housing crisis.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese didn’t have a great year. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

And Albo’s luxurious treatment from his Qantas mates sure was sweet – until contrasted with the cost of living agony suffered by ordinary Aussies.

The PM’s promise of $275 in electricity savings isn’t looking too good either. No matter which way you examine it, the prime ministerial foot is permanently perforated.

KYLE SANDILANDS and JACKIE O

The classic form of the old shot-in-foot is – according to Dictionary.com – to “foolishly harm one’s own cause”.

In which case, step on up, Kyle and Jackie O. The top-rating toilet-tongued Sydney duo began 2024 by arrogantly predicting that by year’s end they’d also be Melbourne’s number one breakfast team.

“I don’t think it’ll be straight away,” Kyle said in March. “I don’t think it’ll be immediate, but by the end of the year, yes.”

No. Not only did The Kyle and Jackie O Show tank down south, but by the year’s final ratings survey it had even fallen to second place in Sydney.

Any more predictions, Kyle?

US PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN

This was a big one. A historic one. A mega one. Even a MAGA one.

“Donald Trump lost two debates to me in 2020. Since then, he hasn’t shown up for a debate,” US President Joe Biden declared in May.

“Now he’s acting like he wants to debate me again. Well, make my day, pal. I’ll even do it twice.”

Joe Biden’s year peaked with a terrible debate performance and went all downhill from there. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP)

Sadly for Joe, he wouldn’t. Despite his powerfully-worded debate challenge, Biden’s solitary debate performance was such a disaster that he was forced by his own party to abandon a second debate and pull out of the presidential race.

Following Trump’s easy election win, Biden further damaged his own reputation by granting a pardon to scandal-prone son Hunter – after vowing to never do such a thing. Bye-bye, Biden.

LISA WILKINSON

At one point during her successful defence against Bruce Lehrmann’s defamation lawsuit, media veteran and very-serious-taker-of-self Lisa Wilkinson took icy exception to lawyer Matthew Richardson’s view of her work.

“Please,” Wilkinson responded, “don’t make me sound like a cheap tabloid journalist, Mr Richardson.”

Lisa Wilkinson arrives at the Federal Court of Australia in Sydney, Tuesday, February 13, 2024. (AAP Image/Bianca De Marchi) NO ARCHIVING

Oh dear. What a terrible, shameful slur. Except, of course, that Wilkinson’s entire very rewarding career has been firmly in the tabloid oeuvre.

Dolly magazine? Tabloid. Cleo magazine? Tabloid. Nine’s Today show? Tabloid. The Project? Tabloid as hell, but without being popular.

Mr Richardson, SC, may proceed.

AMBASSADOR TO THE US KEVIN RUDD

Considering the amount of times ex-Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has pointed projectiles at his pretty little pedal pushers, it’s a wonder the little fella has any feet left at all.

But he does, and Rudd must have felt confident about keeping them when he launched into Donald Trump with a series of brutal attacks written prior to Trump’s re-election.

Trump was, Rudd claimed, a “traitor to the west”, a “problem for the world” and “the most destructive president in history”.

“He drags America and democracy through the mud,” Rudd went on. “He thrives on fomenting, not healing, division.”

In his own attempt at healing, Rudd deleted that abuse from social media. But here’s the thing about shot feet: you can’t unshoot them.

FORMER LIBERAL STAFFER BRUCE LEHRMANN

Australia’s legal case of the decade initially ended with the abandonment in 2022 of Bruce Lehrmann’s trial for allegedly raping his fellow federal Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins.

Lehrmann pleaded not guilty in that trial, which collapsed due to a juror’s illicit private research. The DPP then dropped the charge. Then followed Lehrmann’s own legal pursuit of Lisa Wilkinson and her employer, Network Ten, for allegedly defaming him.

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - APRIL 15: Bruce Lehrmann arrives at court on April 15, 2024 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Don Arnold/Getty Images)

Fortune on this occasion did not favour the 29-year-old, who not only lost the case and copped more than $2 million in legal costs but who was also found by Justice Michael Lee to have on the civil standard of balance of probabilities “raped Ms Higgins”.

Justice Lee’s summary was a perfect version in legalese of a foot-shooting: “Having escaped the lion’s den, Mr Lehrmann made the mistake of coming back for his hat.”

Lehrmann is currently appealing Lee’s defamation finding.

HEZBOLLAH

In most cases, to shoot oneself in the foot is a metaphorical circumstance. But Lebanese terrorist gang Hezbollah almost went literal in 2024, when a plan to communicate via pagers was brought undone by Israeli remote explosives technology.

Israel’s plan, dubbed Operation Grim Beeper, caused thousands of Hezbollah operatives to shoot themselves in all sorts of painful and sometimes fatal places.

The odd foot may have been involved. Roll on 2025, and further feet defeats.