TELEVISION identity Don Burke has admitted “I wasn’t a nice person” and “people don’t like me” but has denied being a sexual predator and a bully.
The former Nine Network star went on the offensive tonight after a full day of lurid allegations against him, suggesting the women who had accused him of wrongdoing were “fragile” and claimed to be a victim of a “witch hunt” ignited by the Harvey Weinstein sexual harassment scandal.
In an interview with Tracy Grimshaw on A Current Affair he said he had much to be sorry for — including a series of affairs — and was not easy to work with on his hit show Burke’s Backyard.
But the 70-year-old denied the allegations made by a number of women who worked with him in the 1980s and 1990s that surfaced earlier today that he indecently assaulted, sexually harassed and bullied them.
He told Grimshaw anyone who was accused of doing what he had been accused of was “despicable” and “should be run out of town”.
Despite admitting swearing and being hard to work for, Burke said he never treated anyone in the manner that had been alleged and said some of the claims involved “things that I would never say”.
“I’m not that man at all... some of these things are despicable. It is not that a man should never say to a woman, it’s that no one should say it.”
He said no one had ever complained about bullying or sexual harassment.
The celebrity gardener claimed to have Aspergers and a lot of other “genetic failings” but then backtracked slightly when he was asked why he’d never mentioned it before.
“I can look at a lens but I have difficulty looking at people in the eye. I missed the body language and the subtle signs that people give you. I don’t see that. I suffer from a terrible problem with that. Not seeing. No one can understand how you can’t see it. But you don’t.”
The claim was in response to an allegation he once told a female producer that if he had a child with a relative then that child would be genetically perfect.
He said he’d never been diagnosed with it, but still believed he had it — partly because he had trouble looking people in the eye.
Burke was challenged by Grimshaw about the number of complaints — and revealed a new allegation about a sexual remark he’d allegedly made, to which he denied.
After the denial, she told him former crew members had told her of the remark.
“So the crew are lying,” she asked him.
He answered: “I can’t go into that. We have some problems. I didn’t say that.”
Grimshaw continued to question him on the denials. “You say that there are a lot of people lying. You say that you were a good guy. You have accepted that you are not a good guy. If you can admit that, how can you categorically say nothing else could have happened to make all of these people are seeing it?”
He replied: “I can remember what I do and don’t say, and I would never do something [like what’s been alleged]. Whether they construed something like that and built it up over the years, I don’t know. But there is a witch hunt on.”
He believed the rumours had gathered as the years went on, and had been amplified on Twitter recently by the Harvey Weinstein scandal.
The enemies he’d made at Channel 9 could also be having their revenge, he suggested.
“It’s a witch hunt. I might have terrified a few people, or whatever, and that I shouldn’t have done that, but these sort of things there no relation to who I am and what I am about. There are plenty of people who were there at the time and are furious, because these things didn’t happen.”
At one point in the interview he referenced “fragile” people who could be affected by his “ethics” — to which Grimshaw interjected.
“You think everybody saying these things are fragile, this comes from their fragility?”
Burke: “Not all of them. I think this whole Harvey Weinstein thing reinforces the victim mentality of women.”
The ACA host asked him about the Me Too campaign that empowered women all around the world.
Burke largely dismissed that. “Some women, many. But for others it reinforces their victim position.”
“Look at the people lining up against you today. Three women have put their names to it...
three channel 9 executives, two former CEOs. Where there is smoke there is fire and that is a lot of fire.”
Burke told her much of it was “just smoke” and again said he deserved “some of it”.
“But not for sleazy sexual stuff.”
The TV presenter said he denied making misogynist and “sleazy” comments, claiming to have run “an anti-misogynist ship” at the Burke’s Backyard office.
“And I’m a perfectionist that drove people very hard and although I felt we did have a happy office, this clearly, when you look at the people who are complaining now, there’s a lot of people that don’t like me.”
Confronted with the specific allegations — which included indecent assault — he said he couldn’t recall the stories he’d read and the words that had been attributed to him.
These aren’t rumours. Women are making allegations about what happened to them. They intimidated me, he bullied me, he harassed me....” Grimshaw said, recalling some of the accounts.
“Might you be guilty of these things?” she put it to him as she sat across from him in his home.
“Absolutely not. What I defended is the words that I have been [alleged[ to say. I do apologise that I gave them a horrible time but a lot of those words have grown over the years. A lot of this was 30 years ago. Who remembers what happens 30 years ago?
Later in the interview he said it was up to Australians to make their minds up.
“I am happy to say to the people of Australia: this is my story, make up your mind if I’m the most evil person that’s ever lived, that’s your decision,” Burke told Grimshaw.
“If you can forgive me for the stupidity and the other things I have done then I am very grateful, but I think that’s their decision not mine.
“I have looked in the mirror and there’s a lot I don’t like. But that’s up to the people of Australia to decide can they forgive me or not.”
His interview with Grimshaw comes after the bullying allegations were published this morning.
A number of women featured in a joint Fairfax/ABC investigation about the activities of Burke, now 70, who worked with him in the 1980 and 1990s.
The women alleged he was a “psychotic bully”, a “misogynist” and a “sexual predator” who sexually harassed and bullied a number of female employees.
Tonight’s interview comes as the Nine Network distanced itself from one of its former big stars.
A spokesman said Burke was not going to be on air next year and said there were no plans to bring him back.
“We were not in discussions with him, he has done some occasional (A Current Affair) segments on around gardening, most recently for “Spring in September”, but he is not going to be on air in 2018 and I have no knowledge of any discussions at all,” the spokesman said.
andrew.koubaridis@news.com.au
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