Australian TV legend Don Burke has angrily denied claims he is a serial predator who routinely bullied and harassed women he worked with across his career, but has admitted he “has some apologies to make” over his actions.

In a 30-minute interview with A Current Affair‘s Tracy Grimshaw, Burke variously blamed the pressures of producing a prime time TV show, an apparent Asperger’s syndrome diagnosis and a social media “witch hunt” for his behaviour, all while denying many of the specific allegations put to him.

The claims of harassment and abuse were first made in a report published by Fairfax this morning. The report claimed that Burke frequently intimidated women, made unwanted sexual advances, fondled women’s breasts and attempted to remove their bras, showed bestiality porn to a female colleague, and frequently made lewd and suggestive comments towards women.

Former Channel Nine executives David Leckie and Sam Chisholm also attacked Burke, admitting they were aware of his behaviour when he was the host of Burke’s Backyard between 1987 and 2004.

Burke Denies Allegations

Burke told Grimshaw he was speaking on the program to put his side of the story forward.

“I am happy to say to the people of Australia: this is my story, make up your mind if I’m the most evil person that’s ever lived, that’s your decision,” he said.

Burke opened the interview by admitting he’d been frequently unfaithful to his wife, and said that “when you look at the people complaining now, there’s clearly a lot of people who don’t like me. They can’t all be wrong.”

But when pressed on specific allegations in the Fairfax report, Burke denied virtually all of them. He denied that he had told a producer that he would “rip off her head and shit down her throat” if things went wrong during a trip to Greece, saying that any person who spoke to a woman like that should be “run out of town”.

He also denied ever showing an employee footage of bestiality porn involving a woman and a donkey. Burke said he’d never even seen bestiality porn, let alone showed it to someone else.

As more and more allegations were put to Burke, he denied all of them, admitting only that he was difficult to work with.

“Where there is smoke there is fire and that is a lot of fire,” Grimshaw said. 

“The rest of it is just smoke,” Burke replied. 

Burke appeared to blame much of his poor behaviour on the pressures of producing a popular, prime time TV show, saying that he took it “brutally” when he realised his show was coming to its end. Towards the end of the interview, Burke said “I’m an Asperger’s person”, as an apparent excuse for his behaviour.

Burke Blames “Witch Hunt” For Allegations

When Grimshaw put it to Burke that an awful lot of people would have to be lying in order for him to be vindicated, Burke blamed a “witch hunt” that he said was being driven by social media in the age of Harvey Weinstein.

“I think this whole Harvey Weinstein thing reinforces the victim mentality of women,” he said. 

While Burke did admit to treating people poorly over his career, he emphatically denied any claims of sexual impropriety or assault, including a claim of taking a reluctant, drunk woman back to his hotel room one night.

“It’s a witch hunt,” he said. “I might have terrified a few people, or whatever, and I shouldn’t have done that, but these sort of things there no relation to who I am and what I am about. There are plenty of people who were there at the time and are furious, because these things didn’t happen.”

Burke ended the interview with a plea for Australians to believe his side of the story.

“I know what I would say and what I wouldn’t say. I know what I would never do and I would never do those things [people] said. You know who you are. Just because someone says that, doesn’t mean it is 100 per cent true. I don’t want to go in and pick [each alleged incident] out and go over them. I think that is an evil in itself.”

Whatever you think of Burke’s denials, it’s clear that there will be more allegations to come in tomorrow’s Fairfax papers.

Can’t believe the words coming out of Don Burke’s mouth on ACA. His excuses are gobsmacking. He’s prepared to cop that “he might’ve terrified a few people.” Wait till he reads tomorrow’s paper. @smh

— Kate McClymont (@Kate_McClymont) November 27, 2017