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Remember when Chris Gayle interrupted a live, on-air interview during January’s Big Bash cricket league with former Channel 10 sports journalist Mel McLaughlin to make a pass at her?
Well we do. While McLaughlin was just going about her job, asking Gayle about his most recent innings, the batsman turned the conversation to her appearance, inviting her to come out for a drink with him and adding that she had beautiful eyes.
“I wanted to come and have an interview with you as well, that’s the reason why I’m here. Just to see your eyes for the first time. It’s nice. So hopefully we can win this game and we can have a drink after. Don’t blush, baby.”
Hit play above if you need any reminding of the incident, which caused uproar among the sporting world, with Gayle fined $10,000 and forced to make a begrudging apology. (“Crap happens,” he said at the time).
McLaughlin accepted Gayle’s words on 10’s The Project, adding that the exchange was “obviously a bit disappointing” and “certainly unexpected” and that as a respected sports journalist she would “have much preferred to be talking about [his innings] instead.”
Well, today this story has an unfortunate update. Chris Gayle has just given an interview to The Guardian where he shows absolutely no remorse for his sexist comments.
“You’re a woman in an environment with men. You’re good-looking. What do you expect?” Gayle said in the interview.
“People are going to make jokes. I’ve seen people kiss the same Mel on live television. There are double standards. All the commentary guys found it amusing – but then someone whisper in their ears and everything was blown out of proportion.”
“She knew exactly how the West Indians are,” Gayle went on to say. “She was laughing before the interview and saying: ‘Guys, stop it, stop laughing.’”
And in terms of the fall out from the interview, Gayle was completely unapologetic. “She got more bad press than me. The public gave her the bad press. She was the one who looked bad – not me.”
The Guardian’s reporter Donald McRae tried to turn the tables on Gayle, asking how he would feel if his seven-week-old daughter was to face that kind of behaviour in her workplace.
“If you put yourself there you have to expect that. You have to deal with it. Not all situations are going to be the best. You have to brace yourself. You have to be professional, yes, but expect the unexpected… It could happen to anybody. Anybody. It could happen again.”
So there you have it. If you’re a female journalist sent to interview Chris Gayle, you might as well “brace yourself” for the onslaught of sexism because, well, it’s just part of your job.
(And in fact, when Gayle was interviewed recently by Charlotte Edwards from the UK’s Sunday Times, he did just that, telling her that he has “a very, very big bat, the biggest in the wooooorld”, adding, “You think you could lift it? You’d need two hands.”)
Seriously. When will this man learn?
