Right well, watched Denton interview Kyle Sandilands. As promised, no pictures of him. So this will have to do:
First of all, the news story was a bit off the mark which Denton confirmed yesterday on radio. Fireworks did not fly. Quite the opposite. We didn't see Kyle outrageously lose his temper or have steam coming out his ears. There was just... well, a lack. I think Denton has said he found Kyle to be very cold and it's as if he has no soul. And really it was a little disturbing.
I think I lost a bit of my soul last night.
The whole thing was really strange.
Firstly, Kyle admits he's not the sharpest tack on the corkboard - this fact really was confirmed by the interview - and that in school he "was that class clown that couldn’t learn, didn’t know maths, you know would fool around to avoid being pointed out as the dumb one."
I think that I just always had that smart alec tongue to get me out of sticky situations whether it was um whether it was to be used for fun or whether it was to avoid being humiliated.
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Kyle comes across as almost devoid of emotion - except for anger of course. He's quick to blame others and I'm sure his skills at self-reflexivity are nil. Plus he doesn't seem to be able to comprehend that his actions may affect other people. I don't think he knows how to consider others at all!
Let's note here that he seems to think he has evolved somewhat as he used to spit and throw chairs.
...back in the cowboy days where I use to spit in, at people and you know and throw chairs and you know was as bit of a lune.
ANDREW DENTON: Mm.
This was rather typical of Denton's approach. He let Kyle dig his own hole.
Kyle's explanation of 'the cowboy days' was his way of defending his spontaneous outing of a 19 year old on live radio.
ANDREW DENTON: Did you ... consider that for a nineteen year old struggling with their own sexuality that this was a, a hugely exposing thing to do?
KYLE SANDILANDS: No, I didn’t.
ANDREW DENTON: Why not?
So that was back in those days.
Now these days on radio:
I want to deal with real life stuff. The real life dramas that are going on in people's lives and a lot of the times radio station management will hate that cause they say no one wants to go to work in the morning and hear a woman crying her eyes out cause her husband’s cheated on her. But I do. I, I’d like to hear it.
This was in reply to Denton's query: You’ve got a lot of faith in your abilities. What are they?
Damn good question.
Answer? That he'd like to hear more of women crying on radio. Hmm. Profound.
And we can see that Kyle does have a lot of faith in himself. He is working with state government to implement changes to some primary schools. Kyle wants to make the classroom "like an Imax theatre."
we’ve developed projectors that turn the whole classroom into um a learning tube so everyone sits in and watches the walls and the roof...
This surely comes from his passion to help others.
I get paid very well from the radio um I get paid very well from Idol. I keep all the money.
Oh. Well maybe not.
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It was obvious that Kyle loves to play up the "homeless years" as he refers to them - after explaining that he was on the streets for less than a year. I suspect that he feels he is owed a lot because of this.
You can tell from the laughter - which appeared to come from the majority of the audience - that people were really feeling for dear Kyle.
To intro this, Kyle's parents asked him to leave when he had a party at 15 and he and his mates drove his parents' cars around, 10 to a car. So we had both their cars out yahooing around the streets um causing trouble.
ANDREW DENTON: How long were you on the streets?
KYLE SANDILANDS: Just a bit under a year but I’d go from you know the first, the first few weeks I was…
ANDREW DENTON: And your parents didn’t come looking for you?
KYLE SANDILANDS: They said they looked um but they couldn’t have looked too far cause I really was still around the same suburbs that we grew up in.
LAUGHTER
KYLE SANDILANDS: I don’t find anything funny about it. [He says in all seriousness to the audience.]
LAUGHTER
ANDREW DENTON: And you, and it didn’t, it didn’t occur to you to go home …
KYLE SANDILANDS: No.
ANDREW DENTON: As in you felt you couldn’t?
KYLE SANDILANDS: I felt that I couldn’t. They said get out you’re not welcome back here. We can’t believe it and that was it. and I, you know I spent a few nights behind shopping centres in, you know where they’d throw out all the boxes and you know packing it. Like as a fifteen year old I had no clue, just thought I was going to get raped and bashed every, every night.
ANDREW DENTON: But, but why I’m, I’m still trying to get it why you were so, I can understand the party and I understand that you were afraid of the strictness but and that they told you to go but why was there so much anger in you that for, you’ve never really gone home?
KYLE SANDILANDS: I really did believe that they, that when they said get out and don’t come back that that’s exactly what they meant.
ANDREW DENTON: But that’s twenty years ago.
KYLE SANDILANDS: Yeah.
ANDREW DENTON: There’s, there’s still that anger. Why is that?
KYLE SANDILANDS: I don’t know. I’m not sure what it is um you know I have a great relationship with them now although this cloud still looms, so it’s never been discussed fully. No one’s ever cried. No one’s ever said sorry.
ANDREW DENTON: Mm.
KYLE SANDILANDS: No one’s ever explained anything, no one’s ever asked any questions.
ANDREW DENTON: Do you feel loved by your parents?
KYLE SANDILANDS: Yes. But I’m not sure if it’s, you know so they can get free Idol tickets or whether it, or whether it is you know…
ANDREW DENTON: Do they ask…
Yup.
You know, this must have really wounded Kyle who dreamed of money and owning only the best things as a child.
ANDREW DENTON: As a kid you use to fantasise about being wealthy didn’t you?
KYLE SANDILANDS: Yeah... Like to the ridiculous where you know my, my grandparents had a stupid little name. Everyone called me this stupid little name um Lord Fauntleroy, Lord Devonport because I would, I, everyone else would be you know kicking balls around in the backyard and I’d be cutting out a picture of a really nice crystal vase out of a magazine and gluing it into my special little book that I wanted oh one day I’ll have a crystal vase like that. It’s a bit weird.
LAUGHTERWell, at least he gave the crowd a good laugh. I wasn't laughing at home unfortunately. Really, the whole thing was just mildly painful in a dull sort of way, uncomfortable to watch.
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Oh, and he's not a bully. After Kyle clarifies this Denton asks him about the Dave Hughes comment and Kyle says that violence is the often the best solution to many difficulties in life. So yeah, he's not a bully.
ANDREW DENTON: A couple of years ago you ah addressed an anti bullying conference and you talked about being bullied as a kid.
KYLE SANDILANDS: Hm mm.
ANDREW DENTON: There are people who consider you a bully. How do you reconcile that?
KYLE SANDILANDS: I was bullied as a kid because I was always the nerd at school that would be in the school uniform from five schools ago because my mum would move around quite a lot so we wouldn’t get a new school uniform so I was always like the target.
ANDREW DENTON: So knowing what it is to be bullied …
KYLE SANDILANDS: Yeah.
ANDREW DENTON: And how horrible it is how do you feel when other people say to you you’re a bully?
KYLE SANDILANDS: I I just don’t accept it to be the truth. Um I don’t feel that I do any bully behaviour. I see bully like behaviour as repetitively causing injury or physical or mental damage to the one person over and over and over and over again for no particular good reason.
ANDREW DENTON: I want to show you another clip now and you’ll probably remember this quite well from the Logies earlier this year. This is Dave Hughes.
CLIP
ANDREW DENTON: National television, a roomful of your peers, laughing at you being called a dickhead. Did that …
KYLE SANDILANDS: Yeah, I know.
ANDREW DENTON: Did that sting?
KYLE SANDILANDS: Yeah, it did. It did. Um I used to be a fan of Dave Hughes but now I will … punch him in the throat when I see him next, it’s as simple as that. It gets as simple as that.A lot of people these comedians they say oh you know it’s just a joke. Mark Holden and Dicko were sitting opposite me. Ah ha, ha… slapping their leg, loving lapping it all up.
I mean I thought as soon as it happened, I thought oh my god and then when you look at the camera and it’s right on you and you’re going ah ha, ha… excellent joke, and inside you know it it it does cut cos you know I don’t really know Dave.
Um I mean now I just hate eh I hate him and him and I will cross paths and you know unfortunately the bad street kid still comes out sometimes. I I I’m happy to kick arse. I I I’m you know a lot of people go oh you know fisticuffs isn’t the way. It is the way for some people.
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But look, there is some hope. To conclude the interview Denton asked:
ANDREW DENTON: So where do you see yourself when you’re 50?
In pain, burnt to the point of blisters and not working. I think that's something we all hope for Kyle, don't you?
