Osher Gunsberg reacts to shirtless photos: ‘It’s bullying’

OSHER Gunsberg has opened up about how hurt he was by the shirtless photos of him that were published online yesterday.

OSHER Gunsberg has opened up about how hurt he was by the shirtless photos that were published of him online yesterday.

The photos, which showed the 42-year-old host of The Bachelor getting changed out of a wetsuit in Indonesia, were published on several sites including news.com.au.

Gunsberg told his Hit 105 radio co-hosts, Stav Davidson and Abby Coleman, that he first heard the photos had been published when he received a text message from Mia Freedman that said, “Oh I see you’ve been body shamed, welcome to what it feels like to be a woman everyday”.

“I’ve been on television since 1999,” Gunsberg said on air this morning.

“Never once have I used my physique as currency ... Never have I gone, ‘Here’s my mad rig’.

“If anything I’ve been really open about the struggles that I have had with my mental health and with weight loss.”

Osher Gunsberg with his Hit 105 breakfast co-hosts, Abby and Stav. Picture: Jamie Hanson

Gunsberg then referred to an article that appeared on the Daily Mail with the headline, “The Bachelor host Osher Gunsberg shows off his ‘Bali belly’,” which he described as “nothing short of bullying”.

“Say for example at work right, if we took photos of one of our colleagues when he or she was on holiday trying to squeeze into a wetsuit and we put it on the noticeboard in the kitchen, we’d be fired, there’s no question,” he said.

Gunsberg said the article and his interaction with the paparazzo who took the photos dredged up painful memories of his past.

“At the airport when we landed back in the Sydney, the look and the glint of glee in the photographer’s eye when he was telling me, ‘Ha, we got ya’, it was the same look of glee that the bullies at school used to have in their eye, that kind of vindictive, mean, blood lust in their nostrils when they used to beat me up and stuff,” he said.

“So for a while there it was BOOM, I was back there getting stacked on in the gym. It was horrible.”

Gunsberg can currently be seen as the host of The Bachelor on Channel Ten.

Stav Davidson asked his radio co-host what he’d say to those people who were listening and thinking, “You’re a celebrity, this is par for the course, toughen up”.

“My job is not to be the hot bloke,” Gunsberg responded.

“There’s a reason I never sang on Idol, there’s a reason I’m not taking my shirt off on The Bachelor. I’m not that guy. I’ve never been paid to be that guy.”

The TV and radio star ended the segment by saying, “it’s mean and it really hurt my feelings, it really sucks”.