Leigh Sales Went On ‘Tonightly’ To Make Fun Of The Horrific Abuse She Cops Online
For anyone who's wanted to hear Leigh Sales say "wanking gumtrees".
When she isn’t busy interviewing Missy Higgins, former PMs or current opposition leaders, Leigh Sales can be pretty funny.
That’s what we learnt when Tonightly with Tom Ballard crafted a skit around the fact that high-profile women are subject to a lot more online abuse than men.
And they went straight to the source for answers:
“Somebody on twitter going by the name @gumtreewanker had a go at me for being un-Australian,” Sales said on the late night comedy program. “Completely fine. Nothing gendered about that. I mean, it is a bit rich to be a accused of being un-Australian by somebody who apparently goes around wanking gumtrees, but as far as insults go, totally fine.”
“Have a look at this photo of me after I’d interviewed John Farnham and Olivia Newton John,” Sales continued.
“This guy tweeted me ‘You look like the members of a cult, but quite a nice one with good, wholesome food.’ Now that’s funny. It’s also true, I am one of John’s sister-wives.”
The skit also compared the types of insults that the show’s two female presenters face compared to their male counterparts.
The women received insults targeted at their looks such as “There’s no way she skips meals, look at her”, “What is wrong with her face, cover it up or I’ll spew” and “No one wants to fuck you, you filthy ugly femmo”.
Charming.
Meanwhile, the male reporter on the show was merely called a “piece of shit”.
And Tonightly is pushing hard for there to be equality when it comes to insults.
“We’re never going to be able to take insults out of the internet, but let’s take the sexism out of the insults,” said Greta Lee Jackson.
As for how not to insult public figures?
“Just check the comments sexism of this video when we post it on Facebook.”
Or, check out the full skit here: