The Project’s Waleed slams ‘white Australian’ habit

Waleed Aly got in a heated debate about a divisive Australian habit during Thursday’s episode of the Channel 10 show.

Waleed Aly hit out at “white Australians” on Thursday night’s episode of The Project over a discussion about bare feet.

A segment on the panel show discussed how Australia is going viral on TikTok at the moment for all the wrong reasons.

Thousands of tourists are posting videos of Aussies going barefoot into restaurants and supermarkets and shaming them online.

Waleed argued with his co-star over his views on being barefoot in public. Picture from X.

Sharing that he felt firmly on the side of the tourists posting videos, Waleed expressed how baffled he was by some Aussies refusing to slap some shoes onto their feet.

A clearly grossed out Waleed told the panel: “Every now and then, I learn something about Australia that reminds me how white I’m not.

“The shoes off … it seems to me that white Australians wear bare feet in the streets and then shoes in the house. And I just...”

Waleed’s co-star, Kate Langbroek, was quick to interject, saying: “Can I point out that black Australians didn’t wear shoes!”

“But it’s a very different scenario,” he quickly responded.

The panel discussed a recent viral video trend that’s been targeting Aussies. Picture from X.

The classic Aussie habit of not wearing shoes has always baffled other countries, and pictures and videos of residents doing their groceries without anything on their feet regularly go viral on both X and Twitter.

Some viral social media videos have even labelled Aussie’s as “feral” over the habit.

Meanwhile, never afraid to share his divisive opinions on The Project, Waleed recently sparked backlash over his comments about the “No” vote.

The host shared his belief that the Voice referendum failed so miserably because the concept wasn’t properly explained and Australians didn’t like the idea of giving one group more power over another.

Waleed faced backlash last month over his views on the referendum. Picture from X.

“It ends up being the elite argument. The more elite sector of society the more likely you were to vote Yes,” he explained.

“The biggest dividing line seems to have been education. If you were in a seat with high levels of tertiary education, bachelor or post you were at the very top end of the ‘Yes’ vote.

“If you had the lowest levels of socioeducation you were at the low end of the ‘Yes’ vote. “That’s not to say people who were educated know what they’re doing and people who don’t have tertiary education don’t,” he added.