Pauly Fenech has certainly made an impression on SAS Australia. Right off the bat, the comedian elicited a few gasps from the Directing Staff when he decided to don his birthday suit after the season’s initiation challenge.
WATCH: Pauly Fenech Sneak Peek | SAS Australia 2022
In the challenge, the recruits were set alight while wearing fireproof suits. They then had to run and dive into a river to extinguish the flames. Paul did this… albeit, a little differently to his fellow competitors.
After exiting the river, the celeb was asked to strip down to his underwear… which he wasn’t wearing.
“F**k me, we’ve got a streaker,” DS Dean Stott said before noting the comedian’s confidence.
“When you do stand up comedy you have to have absolute confidence or you will fail, Pauly said. “So after years and years of all this stuff, I have no shame.”
Shameless is an apt title for Pauly, who gained notoriety after his 2003 comedy series Fat Pizza, which followed the life of character Pauly Falzoni, a Greek pizza delivery boy living in Sydney.
In 2019, while promoting a reboot of the series, Pauly told Seven News that Fat Pizza was “one of the boldest Aussie comedies on television”.
The reality star deemed the show “political incorrectness at its best”.
A famous face who certainly echoed those sentiments is the comedian’s former FP co-star, Rebel Wilson.
In a 2020 interview for The Daily Telegraph, the Pitch Perfect actress called her first ever SBS show “the most extreme culturally insensitive show ever”.
“People would have been crucified for putting that on the air right now, but comedy, there are cycles to it and it does go up and down and it is a bit of a weird time.”
Meanwhile, the SAS star has previously confessed that he thinks political correctness has, to some extent, “strangled” humour.
“I think political correctness has perhaps strangled some of the elements of humour that exist in what you might call the old-style or larrikinism,” he told The Daily Telegraph.
“On one hand, it really isn’t cool if you are hurting someone with art or comedy. But at the same time as a person from another era, I do think that we are at a point where people can be so thin-skinned that they can’t take anything.”
Pauly went on to suggest that if the comedy is mean-spirited, it crosses a line.
Along with Fat Pizza, the actor has created the television series’ Swift and Shift Couriers, Housos, Bogan Hunters, as well as various films and documentaries.
In an interview about the inception of Housos, an SBS satirical parody about Australians living in Housing Commission public housing, the writer explained that the show was largely inspired by his former partner.
“I wanted to do a love story about two bogans called Shazza and Dazza,” Paul told Impulse Gamer, before adding: “that, and I had a bogan girlfriend; her and her family were pure comedy!”
In the same interview, Pauly was asked if he could predict the type of negativity the show might cop.
The director replied: “Some sooks will complain, but who cares, if they don’t likey, then no watchey.”
The comedian is no stranger to backlash, particularly during his stand-up comedy gigs, where he has experienced his fair share of unruly crowds.
“I have had at least 3 or 4 guys get so drunk they try to start a fight with me on stage and throw a few punches,” Pauly told Hear2Zen Magazine in 2019.
“I have had glasses thrown at me a few times. They were wasted. I don’t think I have had any sober attacks. It gets a bit wild because I play places that most comedians are too scared to play, but I’m not that kind of person. I like it wild and if someone throws a punch, as long as I don’t get a broken nose or a broken cheekbone I am happy.”
Pauly’s readily admits that his tendency to push the boundaries can make him a polarising personality, and that’s certainly been the case during his SAS stint.
“I’m just one of those kind of friction people. In the universe I’m a person you either love or hate,” the comedian told TV Tonight, before confessing that a few of his fellow recruits didn’t warm to him.
“I think I was the oldest guy there and there were a few people being pretty patronising, considering all the things that I’ve achieved in my life,’ he said. “I’m not going to name names, but some of them have notoriety, but apart from that, what have they done?”
Seeing Pauly’s personality first-hand, Chief Instructor Ant Middleton told NovaFM’s Fitzy & Wippa that “Paul doesn’t mess around, he comes with a punch”.
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