The whole Bingle bungle
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Lara Bingle. Brendan Fevola. The shower. That photo. Everyone has dipped their nibs into the inkwell of shame. Alongside the usual tabloid tosh, you can count Mia Freedman, football hardwoman Caroline Wilson and public relations expert Sue Cato. They’ve all swallowed it. Bingle, in the space of five days, has transformed from onetime home wrecker/cricket WAG/bikini babe turned fashionista into the cowed victim of the media villain and Brisbane Lions star recruit. The major players — Woman’s Day, celebrity agent Max Markson, Channel Nine and Bingle herself — have given the amateurs a lesson in how to turn a grainy three-year-old mobile phone pic into rivers of cash. Here are the Bingle bullet points — a timeline of events: * Woman’s Day, published by ACP, is owned by PBL. Channel Nine, also owned by PBL, is the major broadcast backer of the Australian cricket team — of which Bingle’s fiancée Michael Clarke is the vice-captain. *The pic’s source was freelance journo Dylan Howard, who was sacked by bitter Nine rivals Channel Seven for rifling through private medical records. * Newspapers and Channel Nine report Bingle’s public spat with Clarke at the Twenty20 cricket. Nine runs big on the fight yarn, backed by images from shocked SCG Members. Clarke was portrayed as the victim of a Bingle hissy-fit. * Shortly after the spat, Markson signs Bingle, whose career was thought to be in free fall, (sources have told Crikey that TV wouldn’t touch her) for an undisclosed sum, remaining mute on any money-making projects the 22-year-old had in the pipeline. * Two days later, Howard’s Bingle pic emerges in Woman’s Day, guaranteeing blanket coverage and sending the AFL and Fevola’s Brisbane Lions into damage control. * Cue front page coverage in the Herald Sun, interviews on Channel Nine’s Today show, a pro-Bingle story on A Current Affair, and a prominent page-five story in the Daily Telegraph. *Markson announces Bingle will sue Fevola for defamation, a claim that is immediately laughed off by lawyers because Bingle is “coming off a low base”. * Then comes this:
*The fee for the interview, which Markson refuses to disclose, is rumoured to be $200,000, of which Markson, based on his usual 30% cut, will snare about $60,000. Before yesterday, Woman’s Day coverage of Bingle was consistently negative, with the swimsuit model usually portrayed as a threat to housewives. Crikey understands Bingle and a reluctant Clarke had been attempting to negotiate a sit-down interview with Connolly and her rivals at New Idea for months. The previous fee was reported to be a fraction of the $200,000 Bingle will receive for Monday’s splash. Special mention has to go to Cato, who enlisted a spectacularly icky meat metaphor on Crikey’s sister site Business Spectator this morning:
Cato concluded: “Any piece of meat is fine so long as it plays its role, bleeds profusely and provides salacious copy.” |
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36 Comments
It’s difficult to comment on this issue without becoming part of the problem.
By taking the time to write “WHO BLOODY CARES”, one demonstrates that one does, to some extent, and continues to give oxygen to these clowns.
Bingle/Fevola pretty clearly divides the population into two groups:
One, those who have so little in their lives that they actually give a continental about what Bogan A did to Bogan B (apologies to greenj), and
Two, those of us who are just appalled that this is a big story, and spend time writing and reading about the fact that we’re appalled that it’s a big story.
Both groups waste column inches and lose what little time and brain-space we had left to think about stuff that actually does matter. Like funny pictures of cats.
Great piece! The most gob-smakingly astonishing thing for me in this whole saga is the revelation that Bingle once had a dalliance with Fevola. That speaks volumes. Ho-hum, it’s all about money and beautiful/stupid/publicity-hungry/money-hungry people playing games and reaping rewards.
I threw up a little in my mouth when I learned of the Bingle/Fevola dalliance. Now I am covering my eyes and ears and seeking a warm dark space for a while.
Wow! Bingle, Clarke, Markson and Fevola. A heady cocktail of minor celebrities reaching out for attention - and a few bucks on the side.
They say you get what you deserve in life, and I can’t help but feel that most of the wankers involved in this story deserve each other.
Which one of them is the football player?
From the SMH article:
‘‘In the version of the photograph I have seen, it doesn’t look like you are seeing terribly much more of Lara Bingle than you have already seen. It would be a bit different if we were looking at a photograph of the Governor-General.”
….because THAT was an image I needed to scrub the Bingle photo from my mind.
perhaps the issue isn’t so much the nudity but the lack of excessive makeup and so being revealed in her full bogan glory
Also Caroline Wilson works for Channel 9, all works in nicely.
How can a photo be defamation? It is, surely, the naked truth? (can I smirk now?)
MESKI: Grrrr…
From Susie O’Brien’s blog of 4 March on the Herald-Sun website.
1.33 [Comment From Vincent ]
This story is a big con and we are all being swept along in it as intended by that artful trickster Max Markson. Lets proved we are all smarter than the average Bingle or Markson by stopping this blog NOW.
Optimism was not rewarded: blogging went on for 75 minutes.
I’ll be sure to let everybody know when I give a rat’s arse about this …
WHO BLOODY CARES?
(that took .03 of a second)
The poor girl - she must be horrified that a nude picture of her had her sellable assets pixelated, no wonder she is sueing
Does anyone remember that gossip mag story a few years ago alleging that the totally evil Nicole Kidman had bought her adopted children from someone? Then a week later, the same mag unashamedly ran a story headed something like NICOLE’S PAIN, a tale of how the totally adorable Nicole had been so dreadfully wronged?
So now, rather similarly, we leap from evil mobile phone picture moll Bingle to adorable and deeply misunderstood Bingle.
Ah, the Australian media! Ya gotta love ‘em.
As for me, I will continue to remain completely discreet about everyone I have ever shagged, or showered with. And (you all know who you are) you can keep the nude photos. At least until I get a call from Max Markson.
So Brendan banged Bingle; this is news?
No, it’s alliteration.
BULLMORE’S GHOST: True!
tre
We read in the herald.sun double page spread on bingle that she was 15 when she walked into some modelin agency and basically said “here I am, I am good looking and i deserve lots of cash”.
Reminds me of the Zoolander quote: “I caught my reflection in a spoon while I was eating my cereal, and I remember thinking “wow, you’re ridiculously good looking, maybe you could do that for a career.”
In the meantime there are many good looking girls who educate themselves and contribute to society they get… ignored because the goings on of tarts like bingle get all them publicity. I mean, come on, what slut would go to bed with a moron like fevola! and then complain when he sexts naked pictures of her come on>
“What slut would go to bed with a moron like Fevola?” Exactly! Also he looks so repulsive. Shiver, shudder.
If newspapers & magazines are hellbent on reporting the antics of low life perhaps they should publish a running column on what’s happening in the local zoo’s reptile enclosure. Or, to elevate the intellectual content several notches, perhaps a narrative on the monkey cage.
I’d be more inclined to read that than the pap written about the gaggle of dills/opportunists/peacocks in this story.
Note that ‘pap’ is the middle syllable in the word newspaper - mere coincidence, Mr Murdoch?
The Australian media tends to stupid: I’m sorry, it does. Not all journos are stupid, not all editors are stupid, but taken as a whole, it’s the worst in the free world. Crikey is an exception… but even ‘The Monthly’ and ‘Quadrant’ which used to be decent have fallen down badly, thanks to the perceived (of the reading public) and actual (of the writing sector) stupidity.
While we continue to support this, we will deserve to read it.
three words oughta sum up the entire torrid saga: BFW
@WYANE
Battle for Wesnoth
Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin
Bread for the World
Broadband Fixed Wireless
Big Fat Whale
Bibles for the World
Born For War
Beveled For Welding
Broadstairs Folk Week
Breast Fed Worms
Best Friends at Work
Bond Forfeiture Warrant
Biafra Nigeria World
Brazil Firewall and Router
Belt Fed Weapon … ???
how do i get my hands on this picture? she’s hot!
also, if I recall correctly, didn’t Fev deny the affair? hehe
anyway, who cares, Fev can play football ok and thats what he gets paid for.
Napoleon Dynamite - go and take one for yourself. I know about half of the male population of Leadville apparently has……
NAPOLEON DYNAMITE; ‘She’s hot!’
She’s used goods, with a new agent!
Remember everyone, this is just a bingle, a minor collision. There is nothing to see and no bodies - just acres of pulchritudinous flesh and a very naughty boy who’s mother didn’t slap him enough.
ahhhh but Venise, even if she wasn’t who she was - she’d still be a very attractive gal…!
Great blog. We did a legal analysis of her case at http://www.fortnightlyreview.info
Look forward to your comments!!
If you threw a stick onto any beach around Port Philip Bay in the summertime you would hit a hundred other good looking blonde bimbos.
@Venise - thats some sensational stick throwing, is there a video?
MR PASTRY: Just my fervid imagination I’m afraid.
Q: Why did Lara Bingle flush her 200K engagement ring down the crapper?
A: Because the Aston Martin didn’t fit
DAMIEN: Honestly!