Ex-Geelong Mayor Darryn Lyons leaves door open for political comeback
Ex-Geelong mayor, paparazzi king and reality TV star Darryn Lyons says a political comeback isn’t off the cards as he launches a new clothing label.
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Former Geelong mayor and paparazzi king, Darryn Lyons has left the door open for a return to politics.
Lyons said he’s often asked to come back after referring to himself as, “Trump, before Trump” during a colourful interview on a new podcast ‘Raskall and Costello’, hosted by TV identities Seb Costello and Allan Raskall.
The 59-year-old was mayor from 2013 to 2016 before he and the council were sensationally sacked by the Andrews Government following an independent inquiry that found it was ‘dysfunctional’.
“I wanted to run Geelong more like a business than a political cesspit, which it was for many years,” Lyons said.
“We got so much incredible, amazing stuff done, which is actually still being built.”
Lyons unsuccessfully stood as an independent in the Geelong electorate at the 2018 state election, receiving 24.7 per cent of the primary vote but losing out to Christine Couzens.
Lyons said he toyed with running for the Senate this election, but for now he’s enjoying some “me time” exploring Southeast Asia where he has spent the past nine months.
But never far from the headlines, he’s just launched a streetwear clothing brand called paparARTzzi.
“It’s very out there, it’s very bling, it’s very ‘I’m lit’ and it’s very f--- me, I’m famous, kind of scenario,” Lyons said.
“But it’s also very much a self-pride kind of brand.”
Speaking about his career, the Geelong-born Lyons detailed how a chance encounter with a media giant kicked off his media career in the UK.
“I walked into the office of the reception at News Corp when it just moved to Wapping and bumped into Rupert Murdoch in the lift and pulled out a T-shirt from the Geelong Advertiser that I’d just been wearing of his caricature, which wasn’t a pretty caricature,” he said.
Lyons said the encounter helped secure his first gig in London with News of the World.
“Yeah, I think it was, ‘give that young fella, young Aussie a break’ … it was incredible,” Lyons said.
In 1993 Lyons founded an international photo agency Big Pictures, best known for celebrity photos including a photograph linked to claims David Beckham was having an affair with his personal assistant Rebecca Loos and photographs from Princess Diana’s 1997 fatal car crash in Paris – which despite being offered “obscene amounts of money” he has never sold.
Lyons talks celebrities, near death experiences, romance and royals on the podcast which goes live this afternoon on Apple and Spotify.
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Originally published as Ex-Geelong Mayor Darryn Lyons leaves door open for political comeback
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