Julia Morris exposes truly disturbing live TV interview

News.com.au

5 days ago

Julia Morris has recently been diving into video archives from her four-decade showbiz career, and with it, she's made some disturbing findings.
The Australian comedian and TV host, 57, is up for her fourth Gold Logie this Sunday. Feeling nostalgic, Morris decided to dust off highlights from a starry career that has seen her grace screens all over the world.
One piece of archival footage came from a work assignment covering the Eurovision Song Contest in Kyiv, Ukraine, in 2005.
At the time, a 'very excited' Morris was hosting live coverage backstage for the BBC, when metal rocker 'Glam' from the Norwegian band Wig Wam gallivanted in.
20 years on, footage of their encounter - reposted by Morris on her Instagram account this week - is truly shocking to watch.
'Oh my god, what a lovely surprise!' Morris squeals in her signature vivacious voice, as Glam, real name Åge Sten Nilsen, walks toward her.
Glam, a lit cigarette in hand, immediately straddles Morris on the couch she's sitting on.
'Oh! Hello, darling,' Morris says, though she's not visible on the camera as Glam continues to sit on top of her, holding her face.
Finally, Glam removes himself, but the touching doesn't stop there. He sits directly next to her and wraps his arm around her shoulder (you can watch the video in the player above).
Attempting to change the subject, Morris excitably points out how the pair have matching silver shoes, proceeding to wave her legs like a 'little kid'.
'I was trying to show that it wasn't a sexual moment,' Morris remembers to news.com.au.
Morris holds herself together remarkably. You'd have no idea how uncomfortable she was as Glam continued to cross the line, touching the host's breasts, kissing her repeatedly on the cheek and stroking her leg.
'What's really spooky is, I don't even flinch,' Morris recalls to news.com.au.
'I suppose as a stand-up comedian, reading a room and adjusting in it is [part of the job]. I mean, what was I supposed to do?'
While she knew the behaviour wasn't appropriate, Morris was mostly worried about something else entirely.
'I was trying to make sure my pad didn't move, because I had a miscarriage the week before,' Morris says.
'I had to have a massive f***ing pad. I mean, enormous. And so, when old mate jumped on top of me, all I was thinking was, 'My god, he's going to squeeze it [the pad] out the back.' And all the while he is touching up my tits. And I was getting in trouble from the producers.'
Hindsight, and having two young daughters who pointed out to their mother Glam was, indeed, being a 'douchebag', has changed how Morris views the interview, and shone a spotlight on many other encounters much like it over the years.
'The more you go through the system, like, before I did The Celebrity Apprentice [Morris won in 2011], up until that point, you're really just behaving,' she says.
'You don't have a voice. You certainly don't have a choice of 'Don't speak to me like that.'
'A lot of young people now are like, 'We're the first to speak up about this.' And it's like, 'No, we all tried, we just got fired.''
While Morris has long been renowned among viewers for her signature rogue wit, the star confesses she's actually been held back for much of her career.
She remembers, somewhat painfully, being made to feel ashamed to be herself during a colourful New Year's Eve live cross in the early 2000s.
'I had to introduce some people outside the casino, and I was like, 'Oh my god, are you all gonna get a little pash tonight?!' I was like, 28,' she says.
'And the person who was hosting the show said, 'I'm going to stop you there Julia before you say something we're all going to regret. Julia Morris, there.'
'What, so, all these years on television, mostly live, and I haven't slipped up yet. And this douchebag says that?'
It was her casting on I'm A Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! back in 2015 when she felt, aged 47, she was finally able to flourish.
She's now clocked up a decade with the much-loved Ten program, a tremendous feat in the increasingly unstable world of traditional television.
'The day that Beverley [McGarvey, Ten president] cast me in this show was the greatest moment of my professional life,' Morris says.
'It was the first time I wasn't micromanaged as a performer. Beverley not only had the guts to employ me, but she let me be myself.
'No-one let me be myself. I mean, in some jobs a bit, but no-one can let me be myself in drama, for example, when I was with Channel 9 doing House Husbands. And certainly [not] in the presenting realms.
'She was the first person to let me off the leash. And allowed me to stay off the leash.'
It's been a big year of milestones for Morris: 40 years in showbiz. 10 years on I'm A Celeb. Might she also nab her first Gold Logie during the awards this weekend?
While the aforementioned archive-diving did unfortunately remind her of her gross night with the 'f***wit', as she calls him, Morris has mostly been left feeling deeply proud of how much she's accomplished, from the 17-year-old who tied for first place in her TV debut on the talent show New Faces with her performance of Holding Out for a Hero.
'It's all so prolific, you know what, I don't need that f***ing award,' Morris laughs.
'The award's going to have to earn me back!'
Jokes aside, Morris concedes the race for Gold between herself, Hamish Blake (the only male in the line-up this year), Poh Ling-Yeow, Sonia Kruger, Lynne McGranger, Allison Langdon and Lisa Millar is an even playing field.
'It is anybody's award,' she says. 'Hand on heart, every single person there hasn't earned it more than someone else, or deserves it more than someone else.
'I think the very fact each of those people have lasted as long as we all have in this brutal industry is reward enough.'