No winners in Craig McLachlan ‘pity party’

The Craig McLachlan interview was a shameful exercise — and he should not have been given air time for his blame game.

Craig McLachlan and his partner Vanessa Scammell went on Channel 7 on Sunday night to play the sexual assault blame game.

They said the media, the #metoo movement and women who can’t tell the difference between consensual stage flirting and abuse are to blame for the Australian actor being accused of sexual assault.

McLachlan, who was acquitted of a range of sexual assault charges in 2020, railed against the “absolute demolition” of his life, says he’s been made to look like a “dirty paedophile” by his female accusers.

He says their vengeance is to blame for his “good life” being destroyed.

The entire interview was an hour-long pity party designed to sway popular opinion against the growing ranks of women who have risked their own reputations and careers to make claims against him.

Craig McLachlan and partner Vanessa Scammell fronting the media after the actor was acquitted indecent assault charges. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Bianca De Marchi

Channel 7 should not have given McLachlan such a platform given the circumstances of his acquittal on charges last year and the rise of new allegations against him in his defamation proceeding against the ABC and Nine.

McLachlan gave a passionate performance as a wronged man whose life has been destroyed by vengeful women. He wants people to know he’s contemplated suicide and thought his family was better off without him.

“Look what they’ve done, when was the last time I woke up in the morning and smiled?” he yells off camera at one point.

Scammell was his female sidekick, urging people to believe that the #metoo movement has made it easier for lying women to be believed.

It was a shameful exercise; McLachlan wheeling out his partner to mount his defence and using his love for her as proof of his innocence.

Doesn’t he realise that committed, loving men can still be sexual abusers of other women?

The interview showed McLachlan at his lowest ebb: in tears, swearing at the camera and railing at the injustice of false allegations.

But I — among many others it seems — was unmoved by his tears and protestations of innocence.

Craig McLachlan’s tell-all interview has been labelled “shameful”. Picture: Channel 7

When McLachlan says he’s innocent, he’s effectively calling his accusers liars and attacking their reputations — the exact sort of behaviour he’s railing against.

All the interview did was make me more sympathetic to his accusers and more disdainful of the actor.

There will be some men who believe tall poppies like McLachlan are targeted by women to get attention.

Some will warm to his narrative that women wake up in the morning and concoct stories to destroy men just for the sport of it.

But they are in the vast minority, and their view is not borne out by evidence.

It’s widely accepted that only about three to five per cent of sexual assault accusations are false or malicious.

Thankfully, the world is changing, and people are more inclined these days to believe women who speak out about sexual assault, putting their lives, their reputation and their careers on the line as a consequence.

Not for one minute has McLachlan stopped to think about the impact the court case and now ongoing defamation action is having on any of the women involved. He’s too busy obsessing about what he’s lost himself.

If McLachlan thought the interview would turn things around, he’s sorely mistaken.

Scammell says McLachlan has been “abandoned by everybody”. There’s a very good reason for this, as the Channel 7 interview perfectly captured.