Ex-Today sports presenter Alex Cullen's desperate bid to find a tenant for the home he has a huge mortgage on - after he was sacked by Nine and forced to move to Melbourne
The ex-Today star, 44, was dumped by Nine earlier this year after he accepted a $50,000 payment from Adrian Portelli for calling him 'McLaren Man' live on air.
Following his subsequent move to Melbourne, Alex struggled to find a tenant for his million-dollar Sydney investment property, finally securing one after five weeks of searching, reported The Daily Telegraph on Thursday.
Alex was forced to progressively slash the price over several weeks before a tenant was willing to move into the house he has an eye-watering mortgage on.
The media personality and his Nine Entertainment journalist wife Bonnie purchased the four-bedroom, two-bathroom property in 2020 for $1.9 million.
Alex first listed the home for rent in early July after moving to Victoria when he landed a new gig on The Christian O'Connell Show for Melbourne's Gold 104.3.
Built in 1912, the Queen Anne Federation dwelling has been carefully maintained and boasts classic features including stained glass windows, patterned ceiling finishes and archways.
Highlights include timber flooring, original archways, decorative fireplaces and a wraparound verandah.
There's also a well-appointed modern kitchen and a large backyard with a paved patio for alfresco dining.
It comes after Alex revealed to Stellar magazine he was offered a gig on 7News after he was sacked by Nine.
'After everything went down, Seven were one of the first on the phone to say, "You have our support, and if you want to come back, we're a phone call away,"' he said.
'I can't tell you how much that meant to me and my family.'
He went on to say he was excited to see some of his old colleagues at the network after previously working at Seven on shows including Sunrise and Sunday Night.
'It's not very nice being the story,' he said, adding: 'It's better telling the story.'
Alex was dismissed from the Today show for accepting the $50,000 gift from controversial Block billionaire bidder Adrian.
In January, the presenter was given the sizeable sum after he was the first media personality to use Adrian's self-proclaimed nickname 'McLaren Man' live on air, which resulted in him leaving Channel Nine.
Alex's exit from Nine was announced by Today host Karl Stefanovic live on air.
The scandal kicked off when Adrian had grown tired of his long-used nickname 'Mr Lambo' and offered the cash reward to the first person to use his new moniker on air, with Alex obliging on the Today show.
Accepting cash, gifts or benefits to undermine journalistic independence, and improperly using a journalistic position for personal gain, are both breaches of the journalism code of ethics as defined by the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance union.
The ill-advised stunt led to Alex being suspended by Nine, and he did not appear on the show while the network investigated the payment.
Nine's parting of ways with Alex went ahead despite Adrian's claim that the journalist intended for the money to be paid to charity all along.
Network insiders also told Daily Mail Australia that the stunt could have been beneficial for the network and Adrian, if Alex had advised the promoter that, as a journalist, he was unable to accept any payment for making the comment on air.
Adrian first received the unwanted nickname 'Mr Lambo' after turning up to a 2022 auction of popular house makeover show The Block in a yellow Lamborghini.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
27 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
American mom living in Australia reveals major differences between kids' birthday parties in the two countries
An American mom who moved to Australia has revealed the biggest differences between kid's birthday parties in the two countries. In a recent video posted to TikTok, Lex, who has lived in Australia for almost a year, sparked a viral conversation after she detailed the top five variations when it comes to children's bashes - and how her family has adapted to them. 'They're just a little bit different from birthday parties in American,' the mom, who lives in Brisbane, Queensland, explained. Joking that her son is turning six soon so she's got 'birthday parties on the brain,' Lex went on to list the five keys differences. The first difference she noticed after going to a 'handful' of birthday parties down under is how 'laid back and chill' the parties were. Lex noted that in America, she feels as though birthday parties are trying to 'keep up with the Joneses.' 'You have these big, extravagant birthday parties [in the US],' she explained. As an example, she added: 'We went to a birthday party one time where they bought a petting zoo to the kid's house.' 'So what I enjoy here is that you know, most of the birthday parties we've been to have been at people's homes or at the park down the road,' added the mom-of-one. 'They ain't worried about having the perfect venue and spending all this money 'Also decorations are super chill, there's no decorations like balloon arches. There are decorations but it's just very simple.' The second difference was that there's less paper and plastic products used at birthday parties in Australia. 'In the States, we use paper plates and plastic forks and knives and plates all the time,' explained Lex. 'Therefore, it's much more common at birthday parties to see them in excess.' Meanwhile, in Australia, she said her son has been to a few birthday parties where they don't even offer plates for cake; instead, they give it to the kids in a napkin - sometimes without forks even. 'It was perfectly fine,' she quipped. 'Why are we using all these paper and plastic products?' The mom said the third difference was her 'favorite.' 'I love it when Australian's sing Happy Birthday,' she gushed. 'They say "hip, hip, hooray" at the end.' 'I love how much our son loves it now too,' she added. 'That's his favorite part of the son.' The fourth major difference according to Lex was the snacks offered at Australian birthday parties. She listed chocolate crackles, fairy bread (sprinkles on buttered white bread), and and the 'party mix' gummy candy. 'I just noticed in general that the snacks people offer here are different,' she observed. The fifth difference was that most of the cakes at Australian birthday parties are homemade. 'I think it's amazing and wholesome that the parents make the cakes,' she said, citing a popular cookbook, The Women's Weekly Birthday Cake Cookbook. 'I'm a big fan of all five differences,' she fondly reflected. 'I can't say there's one thing I miss.' The video went viral and users were divided in the comment section over whether these rules applied to all parts of Australia - with some suggesting it may be regional specific. 'Probably in Brisbane but you come to Sydney and it's a completely different story,' one user wrote. Another chimed in with her birthday memories, sharing: 'We had a pool and my birthday is October so my birthday parties were always a pool party with a BBQ, super fun and super easy. 'We'd play pass the parcel, the chocolate game, the doughnut game and lots of pool games. I loved it and my friends loved it.' 'It's all about everyone having a great relaxed day,' agreed someone else.
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
‘I couldn't have done this in my 20s': Some of us dread ageing. For these stage actors, it makes them freer than ever
Robert Meldrum stalks the stage of the Explosives Factory in St Kilda in a long coat and hat, bewildered and buffeted by a lifetime of memories, grappling with grief and attrition in a dimming and desolate landscape. He's not suffering from any loss of faculties; he's simply an actor inhabiting the world of Samuel Beckett. Meldrum and his director and longtime collaborator, Richard Murphet (both in their mid-70s), are preparing to open Still, a compendium of six monologues cobbled from the Irish writer's later works. While it speaks to universal themes of resilience and despair, it also captures the experience of any ageing actor who puts their body through the nightly rigours of stage work. As Beckett says in his 1953 novel The Unnamable, ' … you must go on. I can't go on. I'll go on.' 'I don't think I could in any way have done this in my 20s,' says Meldrum. 'My ability to be completely still and present enables me to go into this work in a way I couldn't before.' Murphet agrees, adding that Beckett's 'understanding of age and of maturity, the wealth of experience laid on top of you, is really deep. I sense it would be very difficult for a young person to do this'. As a culture we tend to talk about ageing as a series of losses, a whittling away of vigour and ability, but talking to actors in the latter part of their career reveals something more complex and moving. Apart from obvious issues with mobility and strength – Meldrum jokingly mentions 'walking around and going up and down stairs' as areas of difficulty – these performers feel freer and more focused than ever. 'I feel I'm performing the best I've ever performed,' Meldrum says. 'As far as the idea of age slowing you down, it's been a positive for me because I've always been a bit speedy.' Working with young actors as a lecturer at VCA and now at the National Theatre, he notes that the biggest challenge 'is getting them to be still, not to constantly think ahead. It's huge. Maybe it takes a lifetime?' Evelyn Krape has experienced something of a career renaissance lately, wowing audiences in Kadimah Yiddish Theatre's production of Yentl, playing an ancient mischievous spirit – an irrepressible agent of chaos scampering up ladders and jumping on beds. She also recently finished a run in Tom Gleisner and Katie Weston's musical Bloom, carrying the emotional stakes of the show as a vibrant, colourful woman coming to the end of her life in a soulless nursing home. The latter is a rare naturalistic, age-appropriate role for 76-year-old Krape, who has specialised in a more freewheeling and vaudevillian performance style, notably in the plays of her late husband Jack Hibberd. 'I've never really played my age. In Dimboola I played a nine-year-old girl. At 21, I played Granny Hills in the Hills Family Show, where I had thick knitting yarn sewn in between two stockings to give me varicose veins.' At 61, actor and cabaret legend Paul Capsis is younger than Krape and Meldrum, but after the recent death of his mother he's found himself thinking about second acts, and what his might look like. 'If anything, I'm planning on being crazier and more debauched,' he jokes over the phone from Lisbon, where he's having a break before starting rehearsals for STC's upcoming production of The Shiralee. 'Because I don't feel any different, you know? I still think I'm 35 – and then my body goes 'Oh hell no, bitch!'' Capsis doesn't necessarily place restrictions on himself as a performer these days, but he does want more agency over certain conditions. 'I've turned down gigs because they were asking me to sing in that countertenor range, and I just don't want to do that to my voice any more. I'm also much more interested in a director's process. I want to know as much as I can before going in.' Sign up to Saved for Later Catch up on the fun stuff with Guardian Australia's culture and lifestyle rundown of pop culture, trends and tips after newsletter promotion While fear – of forgetting lines or blocking, or folding under the pressures of a long run – can increase with age, so too does confidence in one's skills. 'I feel more certain about myself as a performer,' Krape says. 'I'm not afraid to really go for things and if they work, they work. If they don't, you try something else.' All the actors Guardian spoke with mentioned wanting more time in the rehearsal room. Most commercial theatre productions have a three-week rehearsal period, 'which is not enough,' says Capsis. 'Not nearly enough.' 'A gift for an actor is a second or third season,' says Krape. 'Because you can't help but scratch the surface the first time. If you don't get that time to really play, things are more token and superficial.' Meldrum and Murphet extended their rehearsal process over an entire year. It's a method drawn from famed European theatre companies such as Berlin's Schaubühne or Peter Brook's Bouffes du Nord, where rehearsal periods are ongoing and open-ended. 'There was no time frame [for Still],' says Meldrum. 'We just worked until it was ready.' Of course, financial constraints mean this type of deep exploration is rare. Most actors in Australia, even at the pointy ends of their careers, work hand to mouth and can't afford to luxuriate over roles. Retirement seems almost unthinkable. 'There's still so much I want to do. I hope not to have to retire,' says Krape. Meldrum is blunter: 'I can't afford to retire.' Why even countenance the idea when the work is so rewarding and the contributions these actors make so vitalising for an industry often transfixed by youth? Murphet says the work 'keeps me alive, it keeps me energised. And if I wasn't doing it, then I would slip into senility. So I can't say that there's anything about it that makes me feel old, because there isn't.'
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
‘These are moist times we live in': the strange, sticky world of Australian film-maker Philip Brophy
In the long list of words that humans find disgusting, 'moist' ranks among the most hated and the most innocuous. Why is this word so objectionable? Is it the mere suggestion of something displeasing? The mouthfeel? Or is it just social conditioning? According to the Australian film-maker Philip Brophy in the opening crawl of his 1988 experimental short Salt, Saliva, Sperm and Sweat, 'These are moist times we live in … and things just keep getting wetter.' Don't believe him? See for yourself. After whetting appetites back in the 80s, the Melbourne mainstay's early films are returning to Melbourne international film festival – where they first screened. Almost four decades on, Salt, Saliva, Sperm and Sweat and No Dance have been lovingly restored by the same cinematographer who first shot them – Ray Argall – for the twisted enjoyment of a whole new generation of thrill-seeking moviegoers. From his groundbreaking Warhol Factory-esque experimental group → ↑ → (for those who can't read arrows, that's 'Tsk Tsk Tsk') to his collaborative partnership with legendary avant garde artist Maria Kozic, Philip Brophy is hardly being rediscovered. In fact, a whole generation of art students know Brophy as their teacher – among other things, he continues to lecture on film and sound at Melbourne's RMIT. Much like Brophy's uproarious suburban-horror feature Body Melt, the lesser seen Salt, Saliva, Sperm and Sweat delivers what is promised in its title. The film is broken down into four chapters over four days, each following what is essentially the same story. Man wakes up, man goes to work, man makes a total mess. With each instalment, we follow the central figure, brought to life by the cartoonishly slack-jawed Phillip Dean who, save for a few swearwords, remains mute for the whole film. Sign up for our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning Taking inspiration from the emergent technologies of the 80s, Brophy transforms his frame into a computer screen filled with text. Wordy proclamations are bold if somewhat inchoate, such as: 'What's inside a body? More bodies. Body whole, body parts, body fluids. We are already inside out but we don't know it yet.' What the hell, sure! But Brophy's treatise is also starkly prophetic, particularly when he raises the political concerns of a climate catastrophe still being defined back in 1988. The icecaps are melting, holes in the ozone have changed rainfall patterns, but there is 'no spring of knowledge, no well of contentment' for us to fall back on, he warns. 'Sink or swim – float if you're lucky.' So the true horror of Salt, Saliva, Sperm and Sweat isn't so much being subjected to watching a turd slowly drop into a toilet bowl, but in discovering jaded art about the climate crisis was being made almost four decades ago. Perhaps more so than his contributions as a film-maker, Brophy is known for his work as a composer and musician, and Salt, Saliva, Sperm and Sweat has a signature Brophy score that will stick with you. Take, for example, the repetitious single rhythm created with the drum machine: ba / ba-ba-ba / ba / ba, which imitates the syllabic pattern of the film's title: salt / sa-li-va / sperm / sweat. No Dance, Brophy's other offering at this year's Miff, is a film about the advent of electronic music and the human urge to dance. Before being reshot in 16mm in 1985, a Super 8 version of No Dance was shown in music venues across Sydney and Melbourne. Ironically, the original was destroyed precisely because Brophy chose to project it on to the stages of the same sweaty nightclubs the film sought to document. Sign up to Saved for Later Catch up on the fun stuff with Guardian Australia's culture and lifestyle rundown of pop culture, trends and tips after newsletter promotion In this experimental work, best described as a free form video essay with rhythm, Brophy interrogates the juncture of rock and disco at a time when digital synthesisers and programmable drum machines were calling people back to the dancefloor. Like any good DJ, he blends musical styles and dance sensibilities, sometimes so freely that the mashup becomes mishmash. From break dancing to the unashamed novelties of 'the twist', the film takes an anthropological approach to its melange of studies. The world is Brophy's orifice, and he takes great pleasure in examining what's inside. In both films he invites audiences into a splash zone, to experience what's happening as opposed to simply viewing it. Whether gagging at the sight of vomit or tapping your foot to the beat, it's an impulse that the maverick director invites. Like all deserving bodies of work, Brophy's is being given a new life and, thanks to Miff, his films make a return to the place where it all started. As he confesses in Salt, Saliva, Sperm and Sweat: 'You strive to have a presence in the world; to leave your mark upon it.' Like sweat patches and shit stains, the films of Philip Brophy certainly leave their mark. The Philip Brophy Restorations are showing at ACMI on 21 & 22 August as part of Melbourne international film festival
