Sharp Shooting: Breakdancer Rachael Gunn knocks back Dancing With The Stars offer
Breakdancer Rachael Gunn has pushed back on a lucrative TV deal claiming it’s not “aligned to her”.
OPINION
Olympic breakdancer Raygun has confounded TV executives by knocking back an invitation to appear on the forthcoming series of Dancing With The Stars.
A rep for the breakdancer confirmed the knock-back saying the Olympian doesn’t feel the dance program is aligned with the breaker’s brand.
“Rachael felt the program was not aligned to her,” management company Born Bred Talent told this column on Thursday. “She has a lot of exciting projects in the works.”
Macquarie University lecturer Rachael Gunn, aka Raygun, was, we hear, approached by Seven via production studios ITV, Seven’s Dancing with the Stars partner, last year after her viral appearance at the Paris Olympics.
Television insiders have informed this column ITV was eager to recruit the self-described “breaking researcher”, while Seven, who missed out on the 2024 Paris Olympics coverage to rival Nine, was less so, perhaps fearing it would have copyright issues accessing Nine’s Olympic footage.
On Thursday Seven denied it considered or approached Raygun to appear on its latest series of Dancing With The Stars, which seems odd given everything Raygun touched post Olympics has generated media coverage.
Regardless of conflicting views – and public statements – about her appeal, approaches, we hear, were made to the Olympian’s management and the Seven/ITV chequebook brandished.
Raygun remained unmoved by the advances however despite breakdancing being her passion.
Such a shame some of Seven’s previous hires for the dance program – Derryn Hinch, Molly Meldrum and Schapelle Corby among them – didn’t have similar reservations.
This column hears Raygun dislikes reality television making the decision to decline approaches easy despite the financial inducement.
She also declined an offer to appear on Ten’s latest series of I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here.
She has previously admitted being bruised by the criticism that arrived in the wake of her Olympic Games’ campaign.
In November she retired from professional competition saying criticism of her Olympic performance had been “really upsetting”.
“I just didn’t have any control over how people saw me or who I was,” she told one media outlet.
The following month her lawyers shut down a parody musical, Raygun the Musical, saying: “We must take necessary steps to safeguard Rachael’s creative rights and the integrity of her work.”
Seven last week unveiled the cast of its latest Dancing with the Stars series.
Signing on this season is actor Rebecca Gibney, Olympic boxer Harry Garside, comedian Shaun Micallef, OIympic swimmer Susie O’Neill, TV presenter Osher Gunsberg, AFL player Trent Cotchin, comedian Felicity Ward, radio personality Brittany Hockley, model Mia Fevola and Home and Away actor Kyle Shilling.
Rounding out the group of competitors are two members of the Seven news team, Sydney’s Michael Usher and new Melbourne recruit (and ex ABC staffer) Karina Carvalho.
Seven sources claim the reporters’ appearance follows vigorous lobbying from Seven News boss Anthony DeCeglie who is apparently of the view both Usher and Carvalho’s appearance might bolster news ratings.
Can’t do any worse than Mark Humphries’ axed comedy spot and the whacky astrology segment we figure.
MACDONALD’S RETURN TO RADIO
Ousted ABC-702 mornings presenter Sarah Macdonald made a surprise appearance on her former 2GB rival Mark Levy’s show on Thursday.
While Macdonald’s ABC fans continue to lobby feverishly for her return to the airwaves, Levy, or “Ray Lite” as we call him here, made the unusual decision to invite her onto his program.
2GB’s new mornings host proceeded to chat with Macdonald who last week penned an intimate article for a newspaper affiliated with 2GB. In the article she said she has been consulting a “workplace counsellor” and tabled the radio role she “dearly” misses.
At the end of the conversation, as Levy’s text hotline lit up with listeners supporting Macdonald, Levy stated that while he hadn’t addressed the idea with 2GB management, he planned to extend a regular invitation to Macdonald to join him every Thursday on his program.
The beginning of a beautiful relationship or a broader move by Nine to close the door on the ABC?
It’s too early to know, but certainly a demonstrates Levy is feeling very secure in the role he inherited from Ray Hadley last year.
PARTY GAMES
The absence of former Seven News Director Craig McPherson from senior Spotlight producer Phil Goyen’s recent 50th birthday bash struck some as odd following our report here last week.
The attendance of McPherson’s high profile wife Sonia Kruger and his longtime and loyal EA Angela Morgan, who resigned from Seven in August, four months after McPherson’s shock departure, only served to draw yet more attention to the former news bigwig’s non-attendance.
This column hears McPherson would have been at the party but for a prior commitment in WA.
Intriguingly, Goyen’s party was also attended by outgoing 60 Minutes’ star Liz Hayes who sensationally resigned from Nine’s 60 some four days later after kicking back at the Spotlight’s exec’s party.
McPherson’s absence, say close sources, can be put down to a reunion that enticed McPherson west, strangely to ex Seven boss’s Kerry Stokes’s home state.
We’ve since heard the reunion was between McPherson and fellow recently departed senior Seven news execs, ex Sydney news director Neil Warren and ex Melbourne news director Sean Menegola, both of whom followed McPherson out the Seven door in the middle of last year.
Several months after going their separate ways, the trio we understand had plenty of catching up to do between placing bets on the nags.
FASHIONABLE APPEARANCE
Not since spinner Roxy Jacenko strutted for the cameras outside the NSW Supreme Court in 2016 at her husband Oliver Curtis’ insider trading trial have Sydney court reporters witnessed such peacocking for the cameras.
This week sacked radio host Antoinette Lattouf pulled a page from Jacenko’s fashionable guide to creating a buzz-moment while attending her unfair dismissal case against the ABC in the Federal Court.
On Thursday, after Lattouf paraded a high-end designer wardrobe while appealing to the public to contribute to her GoFundMe page which is funding her legal action, she jumped onto her social media account to defend her wardrobe choices and venture a disclaimer.
“For the record, the outfits and accessories I wore were either loaned, borrowed or generously donated by folks in fashion,” Lattouf said of her fashion-forward choices, adding “it also helps to have four sisters”.
In the days prior, media had been feverishly tallying up the cost of Lattouf’s designer wardrobe which included two knockout dresses more suitable for a formal wedding than court.
One, a white hourglass dress by Lillian Khallouf, was valued at $1,200 while another, a black dress by designer Rebecca Vallance, was put at $799.
Lattouf accessorised her outfits with high end handbags by Jimmy Choo and Louis Vuitton and Tom Ford sunglasses priced from $560 to $3,150.
In a defensive Instagram post Lattouf explained her motivation for choosing outfits that might look at home on the pages of Vogue Australia.
“I knew my appearance would be dissected, analysed and judged because that’s what happens when you’re a woman in the public eye. Women who had been down this road before tried to prepare me for what to expect,” she wrote.
“‘Look polished but not too polished’” she cautioned. “‘Be serious, but not too serious…’”
She was insistent that “not a cent of (the GoFundMe money) has been spent on anything (other than legal fees).”
Lattouf, whose dismissal from the ABC in December 2023 has embarrassed many at the ABC, added a thank you plug to her stylist and also to her husband Danny “the photographer who doubles up as the love of my life”.
GORDON’S GREAT GET
Media proprietor Bruce Gordon celebrated his 96th birthday this month by taking a serious step towards realising his longtime dream of owning and running media company Nine Entertainment.
Nine’s largest shareholder is disposing of his Northern NSW television licence, for which he paid $55 million five years ago.
Gordon has, until now, been blocked from lifting his current 14.95 stake in Nine due to his ownership of the Northern Rivers licence.
Once offloaded to Paramount Ten, which confirmed its planned takeover of the licence in a statement yesterday, the buoyant birthday boy can acquire as much of Nine as he can afford, and pundits predict Gordon will pick up another ten per cent of Nine quickly and with it claim greater voting rights. Hip hip hooray!
“WIN’s strategic focus is on Nine,” Andrew Lancaster, CEO of the Gordon-owned WIN Corp, said on Thursday in what sounded a little like a declaration of war.
A shakedown of Nine’s board, on which Lancaster already sits, is expected to follow and some inside the tent are eagerly tipping the appointment of newly arrived ex-ABC director Peter Tonagh to replace recently appointed chair Catherine West in the not-too-distant future.
A second board seat would also be on Gordon’s wish list, possibly for daughter Genevieve who has been running WIN’s radio stations in Wollongong.
What he does at Nine, when he owns it, is fuelling uncertainty inside Nine’s tent.
Sign off on the appointment of a CEO, Matt Stanton is only acting in the role and could be moved aside for Lancaster? Reshuffle the board? Sell Nine’s underperforming radio division, which based on current evaluations is worth between $25 and $32 million?
And what fate for Stan, which has to date delivered too little return for Nine’s investment?
Meanwhile we hear a cold war continues to rage within Nine’s publishing division where its managing director Tory Maguire seemingly rates her chances of rising to the position of Nine CEO.
Gosh, that didn’t take long?
Talk also continues to swirl about Bevan Shields’ tenure as editor of the SMH.
We hear Shields last year had hopes of securing an overseas correspondent role for the publishing group but recently had a change of heart as Nine’s North Sydney newsroom began to swirl with speculation about who might replace him.
Chief reporter Jordan Baker is one whose name we hear has been favourably recommended for the role, should she want it.
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