Some of Australia’s most well known names are set to take part in the new season of Dancing With The Stars, which has switched from Network Ten to Channel Seven this year.
WATCH: Schapelle Corby forced to defend her innocence on SAS Australia
And while old favourites including Home and Away’s Ada Nicodemou and TV personality Tom Williams are among those putting on their dancing shoes, some inclusions are a little more controversial.
Among those announced to be competing for the Mirror Ball trophy is notorious convicted drug smuggler, Schapelle Corby.
It’s not her first turn on reality TV since finding freedom – she also took part in last year’s gruelling reality show SAS Australia – but the move has already garnered considerable backlash from fans of the family friendly show.
Taking to Facebook, one fan raged: “Seriously?? By doing this you are showing everyone..and even kids that you can be glorified if you commit crimes. How about you use real role models to look up to.”
Another person was just as displeased with Schapelle’s inclusion on Dancing With The Stars and didn’t hold back.
“My family won’t be watching!! She is no way a celebrity, just a drug runner…not something I want kids watching!!” the viewer wrote.
Another echoed the sentiment, adding: “Wont be watching the show this year. The show is Dancing With The Stars, not dancing with the drug mules!”
However, not everyone was angered by Schapelle signing up for the series.
“Schapelle has done her time extremely harder then the murders and drug pushers we have in this country,” one fan penned.
“Good on her for having the courage to continue her life and enjoy it at the same time. Life is to short for narrow minded people in this world.”
In 2004, Schapelle was travelling with her brother and two friends from Brisbane to Bali, via Sydney. When she arrived at the airport in Denpasar, she was stopped by customs officers and found to have 4.2kg of cannabis concealed in a vacuum-sealed plastic bag in her unlocked bodyboard bag.
The then 27-year-old tried to prevent customs officials from opening the bag, but later said she had no idea there were drugs in the bag, until it was opened right then and there at the airport.
Schapelle was later arrested on drug smuggling charges and thrown into the brutal Kerobokan Prison in Bali.
Schapelle has always maintained her innocence and throughout her trial, her lawyers argued she had absolutely no idea about the cannabis in her bag, and that she had unintentionally become a drug mule, suggesting it was baggage handlers who put the drugs in her bag.
She ultimately saw out nine years of her 20-year sentence in prison, getting off early on parole in 2014, after petitioning the President of Indonesia for leniency on the grounds of mental illness.
Related stories
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
