Kyle Sandilands has hit back at criticism over his controversial comments on the Paralympics, slamming calls for him to be sacked as “bulls**t”.
The drama began on Wednesday morning when the KIIS FM host mislabelled the event as “the Special Olympics” and likened their athletic performance in the Tokyo 2020 Games to “sausages”.
WATCH: Kyle Sandilands’ cruel prank reduces Jackie O to tears
“Have you been watching the Special Olympics?” he asked his colleagues on Wednesday morning.
“It’s horrific some of the things. I saw some poor bloke ran for the high jump and then veered right ‘cos he was blind and landed on his a** on the ground.
“And then when they were playing soccer, the blind people, I was thinking, are you joking? They’re throwing themselves on the ground like sausages to block the ball.”
“I think, good on you. I love the spirit of the contest,” he added.
“But I feel that Jesus Christ, that’s a big effort.”
When Brooklyn Ross countered that Paralympians put in “way more effort” than able-bodied athletes, Kyle replied, “You can be nice to handicapped (athletes), but you don‘t have to compare them to the non-handicapped. You don’t have to lift them up to be better than the non-handicapped.”
The rant immediately drew the ire of listeners, with Australian Paralympian Geoff Trappett taking to Twitter to unleash his fury on the host.
“Happy to volunteer to come on the show so you can tell it to a Paralympics athlete’s face,” Trappett wrote.
“The punchline can punch back.”
The comments also drew criticism from Greens Senator Jordon Steele-John, who called for Kyle to get the sack.
“Kyle’s comments are abhorrent, ignorant and ableist,” he told news.com.au.
“He has a long history of espousing hate and these comments are hurtful to disabled people. He needs to pull his head in, and apologise to our athletes and the disability community.
“There is no place for ableism in our community, and these comments are the latest example of why Kyle should be sacked from his broadcasting roles.”
On Friday morning, Kyle launched a scathing on-air attack on the reports.
He said: “Here’s the lying headline: ‘Sandilands slammed for Paralympic swipe’. Now I’m not slammed by anyone except the one Greens Senator that the journalist had asked to comment then sent the Senator the audio so he could comment.
“So straight of the bat it’s a bulls**t story.
“I said all these things, but I wasn’t negative towards the contest. I just said I saw some stuff and was shocked… it was quite the eye-opener,” he explained.
“They make the article sound like I’m very anti-anyone with a handicap.”
He added, “So if you’ve got no news, write about someone who’s not going to follow it up, chase it up and find out what really happened, because I’ve got a lot of time on my hands and lots of money to make things happen.
“No one complained, there was no big outrage, it’s a lying fake news story right there in The Daily Telegraph. Fake headline, fake story, fake outrage.”
Related stories
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
