Dave Hughes slams A Current Affair’s Michael Clarke stitch-up: ‘It’s an abomination’

Dave Hughes has called out A Current Affair for dragging Michael Clarke through the mud on television.

Radio presenter Dave Hughes has slammed A Current Affair over its handling of the Michael Clarke interview that aired on Tuesday night.

Cricketer Clarke was invited onto the show to promote his new line of bitters, but ended up being “stitched up” and instead probed about the January Noosa incident that involved an embarrassing public altercation involving his on-off girlfriend, Jade Yarbrough, and Today host Karl Stefanovic.

Hughsey appeared visibly upset at the treatment of Clarkey on A Current Affair. Picture from SCA.

Clarke appeared to be visibly uncomfortable and sweating as he was asked a series of hard-hitting questions about what happened that night.

The former Australian cricket captain became a laughing stock after the altercation was secretly filmed by a bystander back in January and obtained by The Daily Telegraph.

In response to the viewer backlash over the interview, Dave Hughes hit out at the show on Wednesday morning’s episode of 2DAY FM’s Hughesy, Ed & Erin.

“This is a massive stitch-up,” he said.

Co-host Erin Molan agreed, saying that guests should be “warned” about what kind of questioning they would face.

“I’ll always let my guests know if I’m going to go hard this and this,” she said. “I let them know. Or I say I’ve got to ask this as otherwise my audience will wonder why I’ve not asked this so it’s not an ambush. My belief is he was told it was not going to be that, and then it was.”

Michael Clarke was probed with a barrage of questions about the incident on last night’s show. Picture from Channel Nine.

Hughse continued expressing his outrage, and labelled the interview an “abomination”.

“You’re best friends with him - can you text him and say that I’m absolutely outraged at what A Current Affair did? That is an abomination,” he ranted. “They’re a disgrace. He has every right to be upset.”

Molan added: “I get TV and media, that’s a great headline to them and they sell a bunch of advertising. But if they have given him an indication that they were’t going to go there and then they did? That’s wrong.”

Viewers lashed out at the handling of the interview and jumped to defend the star. Picture from Channel Nine.

Meanwhile, in the interview, Clarke told the show that he regrets what happened that fateful evening, calling the infamous public brawl a “lesson” to be learned from.

“Relationships are tough, behind closed doors, and a lot of things happen that we all deal with,” he said on camera.

“A divorce, you know. Man, [the] things I’ve been through, so sad, so hard,” he added referring to his divorce from model Kyly Clarke, who is the mother of his only child, Kelsey Lee, seven.

“I think the one thing is you’ve just got to do your best – highs, lows, pros, cons, good times, tough times. I’m like everyone else. Still to this day I’m standing here trying my best and I hope that doesn’t change.”