Surprise, surprise: disgraced former AFL player Ben Cousins continues to be rewarded after displaying horrific behaviour towards women. Channel Seven recently announced that Cousins will be commentating the West Coast and Fremantle home games alongside Shaun McManus, Mark LeCras and Daisy Pearce on Sundays.
For some reason, Seven seems to be pushing Cousins into stardom, even previously chucking him on Dancing With The Stars and SAS Australia. Normally, the ex-athlete to washed-up reality star or pundit pipeline is common, but Cousins’ previous behaviour means Australia shouldn’t have to endure his presence in the media.
While the media often tries to hype Cousins up as having a redemption arc, after his drug addiction saw him get into “trouble”, many gloss over his serious intimate partner violence.
Back in 2017, he was handed a one-year prison sentence after stalking his ex-partner over “nine months of terror”.
In 2020, Cousins served another seven months in jail after stalking his ex — and mother of his children — and was convicted of breaching 22 Violence Restraining Orders.
The court heard that Cousins allegedly told Maylea Tinecheff, “I’m going to kill you. Take your life, your freedom and the things you love the most.”
Although Cousins had been ordered not to contact Tinecheff, the court was told he attempted to make contact 542 times.
Seeing Cousins described as a footy legend leaves a sour taste in my mouth, because it’s proving once again that men with power can continue to get away with abuse and life like nothing has happened.
Rewarding a convicted stalker with what’s essentially a promotion is a slap in the face to all intimate partner violence victims throughout Australia.
It’s not like Seven hasn’t penalised or fired presenters before — in 2021, Georgia Love was stood down after making a racist joke about a Chinese restaurant on Instagram. She apologised, but was removed from the air that week and eventually left the network.
However, Seven was happy to pay Bruce Lehrmann‘s rent for a year in exchange for media access, and financially defended alleged war criminal Ben Roberts-Smith in his defamation case against Nine (the owner of this masthead). Is it only the men accused of serious (and violent) crimes who get special treatment at Seven?
X (formerly Twitter) has exploded with outraged comments from Aussies, with many asking Channel Seven to “do better”.
“Once again screaming into the void about Western Australia and Channel Seven giving Ben Cousins airtime. I’m all for someone turning their life around, but for a known DV Offender I think it’s for the best that they do it out of the public eye,” one person wrote.
“It’s crazy to me we’re just walking past someone convicted of stalking being given cushy TV jobs?” another asked.
“Is there a shortage of ex-AFL players who are keen to commentate on a game they love? Why do Channel Seven always go for the bottom of the barrel! I don’t care that Ben Cousins did drugs, I care that he stalked, intimidated and breached his AVOs. Give the spotlight to someone else!” a third exclaimed.
It’s unlikely Seven are going to backtrack on this decision, given all the publicity they’ve given to Cousins over the years. PEDESTRIAN.TV has reached out to Seven for comment, so let’s see how they defend their latest media darling.
Lead image: Getty
