Bert Newton’s controversial final Logies speech

Taking to the stage weeks before his 80th birthday, Bert Newton showed he’d lost none of his famously cheeky humour.

Bert Newton was the undisputed king of the Logies, having hosted many times over the years and taking home four coveted Gold gongs.

And his final appearance at the Logies in July 2018 proved he’d lost none of his cheeky humour, even as he approached his 80th birthday.

In fact, while Newton’s seven-minute speech drew big laughs from those in the audience, he later had to contend with something he never would’ve encountered earlier in his career – a social media backlash, as some viewers criticised his politically incorrect jokes.

Newton took to the stage to a present the Graham Kennedy Award for Best New Talent to an impromptu standing ovation from the Logies audience. But from his first words, it was clear this wasn’t going to be a typical ‘elder statesman at an award show’-type speech.

“I think I might be the warm up for the In Memoriam,” he quipped. “I sort of feel like a bald Norma Desmond!”

Bert Newton’s speech at the 2018 Logies raised eyebrows.

He said he was sure many of the younger members of the audience would be looking at him and wondering “where has this old poof come from,” a joke that earned shocked laughter from those present.

From there, he ran through his career, roasting both himself – “now I’m known primarily as the husband of Patti Newton” – and the networks he’d worked at: “After I left Channel 7, I left television … and went to Channel 10.”

In one tense moment he called upon Project host Waleed Aly, mentioning that Aly’s wife Susan Carland had famously converted to his Muslim faith. The couple, sat in the audience, looked on somewhat nervously - surely not the only ones wondering where Newton was going with this. Newton then joked his wife Patti had done the same for him: “She now drinks and she has her own TAB account.”

Then he spoke about his late, great friend Graham Kennedy, offering up an innuendo-laden anecdote about the TV legend, who was famously guarded about his sexuality.

Newton insisted he “didn’t mean anything untoward.” Picture: NIGEL HALLETT

“He enjoyed giving young people a chance on television, he was a great mentor, he mentored a lot of young people. You knew if you went to his dressing room it was locked, he will be inside doing some mentoring,” he said, an eyebrow raised as the audience gasped.

Newton’s voice was noticeably shaky throughout and not all of the off-colour jokes landed, but the man who slipped so many cheeky double entendres into Australian daytime television was never going to read polite platitudes from a teleprompter when he returned to the Logies stage he’d dominated for so many years.

As debate raged over whether his speech was hilarious or inappropriate – or both – Newton insisted he meant no harm.

“It was totally innocent so far as I am concerned,” he said.

“In fairness, these days, everything is jumped on. I am not that sort of person. I didn’t mean anything untoward.”

It was to be Newton’s final appearance on the Logies stage – and he certainly went out with a bang. The previous year, he was too unwell to even attend the ceremony, with Patti going in his place, wearing a special tribute to her husband pinned to her outfit.

"Even though Bert’s not well I'm taking him to the Logies," said Patti before the 2017 event. Picture: Instagram

And today, in the wake of his death, a previously unaired Logies story about Bert Newton that shows the true measure of the man. Showbiz reporter Peter Ford revealed on-air this morning that Newton once gifted one of his prized Gold Logies to a friend of Ford’s who was dying of AIDs – but swore them to secrecy until after his own death.

“Don’t report that until after I’ve carked it, because I’ve probably broken some Logie law by giving one of them away,” Ford said Newton told him – and so the story remained untold for 31 years until after the TV legend passed away over the weekend aged 83.

Originally published as Bert Newton’s controversial final Logies speech