An Australian columnist has been dropped over controversial tweets sent during the Logie awards.
Catherine Deveny used Twitter to comment on celebrities during the awards ceremony in Melbourne.
Remarks made by the Melbourne Age columnist included one targeting the 11-year-old daughter of Steve Irwin.
“I do so hope Bindi Irwin gets laid,” she wrote.
In an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald yesterday, Deveny defended her comments. She claims she was using satire to “expose celebrity raunch culture and the sexual objectification of women, which is rife on the red carpet”.
Deveny says her remarks were “taken out of context” and likened the situation to passing notes in class.
“This was a ludicrous remark that was as ridiculous as me saying I hope the dog that Molly Meldrum brought with him got drunk,” she told the newspaper.
Deveny also refused to apologise for a tweet about Tasma Walton, the wife of comedian and TV personality Rove McManus.
“Rove and Tasma look so cute … hope she doesn’t die too,” she wrote.
Deveny told the newspaper she “meant every single word” of the tweet about Rove, whose wife died of cancer in 2006.
“I do hope that Tasma doesn’t die and I hope that Rove doesn’t die… I absolutely meant it.”
Readers took to the Melbourne Age website, launching their own attacks at Deveny in the comments section of her online story.
Editor in chief for the Age, Paul Ramadge, confirmed last night Deveny would no longer be writing for the newspaper.
“We are appreciative of the columns Catherine has written for The Age over the years, but the views she has expressed recently on Twitter are not keeping with the standards we set,” he said.
Deveny faced a backlash from readers last week after a Twitter rant in which she proclaimed, “Anzac Day shits me”.
She says humour is “deeply subjective” and many people just do not understand Twitter.
“It is not a news source, but is starting to be used as one.”
“Six months ago Twitter was just people saying ‘Oh my God, I’m so hung-over,” she told The Sydney Morning Herald.
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