Channel 7 presenter Abbey Gelmi goes public with disgusting photo past

Channel 7 presenter Abbey Gelmi has gone public with shocking news as the AFL reels from the GWS Giants skit scandal.

Abbey Gelmi has gone public with ugly revelations of the disgusting treatment she has endured during her glittering career.

The Channel 7 presenter on Tuesday dropped news about a “dick pic” she had received earlier in her career — a revelation shared on her podcast during a discussion surrounding the GWS Giants’ skit scandal.

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The AFL is still reeling from the ugly scenes reported to have unfolded during the Sydney club’s “Wacky Wednesday” end of season celebrations.

Fourteen players in total received punishments. Six players received suspensions, while senior players, including captain Toby Greene received $5000 fines.

The league punished the players under its “conduct unbecoming” rules. The players’ have accepted that skits and costumes at the “controversial couples” themed-event were “unacceptable”.

Young player Josh Fahey received the biggest punishment, a four-match suspension, with the league confirming the player had simulated inappropriate acts on a sex doll.

The details to emerge from the shindig — held inside a private room at a Sydney pub — have understandably deeply effected Gelmi and podcast co-host Georgie Tunny.

Abbey Gelmi Picture: Supplied

Abbey Gelmi and Kane Lambert at Richmond's Jack Dyer Medal at Crown Palladium on September 27, 2022 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Morgan Hancock/AFL Photos)

Gelmi said on this week’s Two Good Sports podcast the ripple effect of the Giants players’ behaviour “is terrifying for me”.

It comes as she shared details about the incident where she was sent an unsolicited “dick pic” during the early days of her career in sports journalism.

“We mentioned, Georgie, the flow on effect of this,” she said.

“We’ve both worked in sport and we both started out in sport as very young women and the people that say ‘let boys be boys, this is funny’, all that sort of stuff are our audience.

“When I was 22 or 23… I read my first ever bulletin for Fox Sports News. I’d done two degrees to get to that point. I’d moved interstate. I’d followed sport my whole life, and I was so proud of myself and really excited for that opportunity.

“I then got back to my desk where part of my role at the time was also to monitor the social media account of Fox Sports… and I’d received a direct message to my personal account, which at this point I wasn’t even really a public figure in any way shape or form, and I opened it and there was a dick pic…again 22 or 23 and I was just doing my job.

“And that for me was the beginning of more than a decade of realising that if I’m going to be a woman in sport, this is stuff that I’m just going to have to tolerate.”

She said she continues to receive ugly messages that suggest she does not belong in the male-dominated space.

Abbey Gelmi and Georgie Tunny. Picture: Supplied

“I have received messages my entire career about how I look,” Gelmi said.

“If I’m wearing enough or if I’m wearing too much is always what I get. People say, ‘You’re a prude, wear less’.”

“Even with this podcast, a few of weeks ago Laura and I did a topic on where the AFL Grand Final should be, and I argued that it should stay at the MCG, and somebody thought I was arguing against them, and the line at the end was ‘stick to sports you know’, and I just go, if I was bloke you’re not saying stick to sports you know.”

“The comments that come in direct messages as a woman in sport are always gendered. I watch pioneers, your Kelli Underwoods, these women that have weathered all of this s*** in order to be in sport, it doesn’t matter what they do they are going to cop it because of their gender anyway.”

Gelmi and Tunny followed on from comments made by players of the GWS Giants AFLW team this week where captain Rebecca Beeson said the playing group was “deeply hurt and angered” when the news dropped.

“As the AFLW playing group, we feel it is of great importance to stress that the behaviour that included references to gender-based violence is completely unacceptable under any circumstances,” she said in a statement.

Gelmi also connected the players’ behaviour with the domestic violence crisis Australia is facing.

Abbey Gelmi and Abbey Holmes at the Channel 7 2023 Upfronts. Picture: Supplied/Ch7

“The reason that the ripple effect is terrifying for me, is at the moment there is a Respect Victoria campaign about calling it out,” she said.

“There is a line in there that says, ‘Not all disrespect ends with violence but all violence against women starts with disrespect’.

“We live in a culture in Australia where there is a spike in violence against women around the AFL Grand Final, around the NRL Grand Final and around State of Origin, that’s facts. And if they say ‘well this was behind closed doors’, do you know where women in this country are least safe? In their home. And this idea that it is funny for a group of men, and it’s not just women that were victimised through this, it is minorities as a rule…

“And the thing that made me sick to my stomach, again I consume a lot of this is in my job, and the talk back callers throughout the week, and even listening to male colleagues of mine that took a strong stance on radio, saying this isn’t funny, this isn’t OK, genuinely saying we’re looking at the text line and the messages coming through, I’ve got to be honest are scary.”

She also said: “Jokes about rape and terrorism and racism in any context, are not funny. It is 2024.”

It was reported some of the GWS Giants antics included one player dressing up as ex-NRL star Jarryd Hayne.

The Dally M Medal winner was cleared in June this year of sexual assault — he was released from prison after winning an appeal against a rape conviction.

Josh Fahey dressed as a former NRL player. (Photo by Mark Metcalfe/AFL Photos)

Jarryd Hayne was cleared earlier this year. Picture: NewsWire / John Appleyard

A reference was also made to American music mogul Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs, who is being investigated for sex trafficking.

TV and radio commentator Tunny said: “This is just another example of the world telling us that the sport is not for us, not for girls.

“It’s not for women and so therefore this is our response.”

“I’ve been trying to wrestle with the idea about why this case, these Giants players acting the way they did, has hit me more than others, because this is not the first time that codes have let us down.

“This is not the first time teams have let us down and this is certainly not the first time nor will it be the last that players have let us down.

“It is a greater mirror, footy in general is a mirror to society. So what we are seeing from those boys and what they deem to be funny and an inconsequential skit, is essentially society once again saying or telling us, that sport is not for us, sport is not for women, you actually aren’t welcome here, unless you want to be the butt of the joke.”

Tunny, a regular guest on Network 10’s The Project, recently celebrated her engagement with fiance Robert Mills.

Gelmi is expecting her second child with fiancee Kane Lambert, a former Richmond star.

She and Lambert welcomed their first son, Louis, in March last year.

She strutted the Brownlow Medal red carpet last month, showing off her baby bump.

She has emerged as one of the most popular members of the Channel 7 sport team and presents the weekend sport bulletin on 7News in Melbourne.

Originally published as Channel 7 presenter Abbey Gelmi goes public with disgusting photo past