I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! Australia 2023‘s Ian ‘Dicko’ Dickson has admitted he’d be cancelled by today’s standards after he was grilled about the now-infamous moment he fat-shamed Paulini Curuenavuli on Australian Idol.
During the episode on April 5, the former Australian Idol judge was confronted by Married At First Sight star Domenica Calarco over his misogynistic and belittling comments back in 2003.
“I’ve been wanting to ask you this question,” Domenica said.
“When you were on Idol… social media wasn’t big.
“If that did happen now,” she continued before Ian jumped in and admitted he’d be “tarred and feathered” if he made the same fat-shaming comments about Paulini in 2023.
Ian ‘Dicko’ Dickson addresses fat-shaming comments
“There was this girl on Australian Idol [season] one 20 years ago… called Paulini” he began.
“Beautiful girl, amazing voice.
“She came on towards the end of Australian Idol when it was massive. 2.5 million people [watching] per show which is big for Australia. And she wore a two-piece dress and it looked, it just didn’t look good.
“It went through my mind. I can actually shut up because people have started to like me now or I can do what I said I would do.
“Unfortunately, I said, ‘You need to choose more appropriate clothes or shed some pounds’.”
Domenica’s facial expression was iconic!
“Ohhhh dude,” she responded to the group.
“If I was standing on a stage and Dicko said to me ‘you should wear something more appropriate for your figure he wouldn’t want to be the one on the receiving end’,” Domenica said in a piece to camera.
“He wouldn’t want to know what was coming for him”.
Viewers also took Ian’s sincerity with a grain of salt, calling his comment “harmful”.
I’m A Celebrity’s Ian ‘Dicko’ Dickson says he’s a changed man
The former record label executive downplayed the incident to his campmates, saying it was just “eleven banal words”.
But he did admit he does self-censor the “thoughts going on in this head that I can’t verbalise” and wouldn’t say those comments to Paulini today.
‘I’m a straight shooter but these days I’ve had my arrows confiscated because it’s just not worth it,” he said.
“Would I say it today? No I wouldn’t but I am a different person today and the world is different.”
Paulini opens up at Ian ‘Dicko’ Dickson’s Australian Idol fat-shaming comments on I’m A Celebrity
As recently as March, Paulini, who starred in season seven of I’m A Celebrity in 2021, said she was still impacted by the comments.
“It wasn’t like I started with a lot of confidence anyway,’ the now 40-year-old told Stellar Magazine.
‘But [that experience] definitely took me backwards.”
Even two decades on, figures like feminist author Clementine Ford say Ian’s words reinforced negative body image ideals for the generation of young people who grew up with the show.
Paulini was 21 years old at the time and chose to perform in a show-stopping gold dress.
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