i'm a celebrity dicko paulini

Dicko Got Emotional On ‘I’m A Celebrity’ Over Paulini’s Gold Dress Saga

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Ian ‘Dicko’ Dickson broke down in tears during a heart-to-heart with Woody Whitelaw on I’m A Celebrity last night, after recalling how a father told him that he’d “triggered” his daughter’s eating disorder.

The revelation stemmed from a comment that Dicko made back in 2003 on Australian Idol after contestant Paulini Curuenavuli delivered a rendition of Destiny’s Child’s ‘Survivor’. At the time, Dicko, who was a judge on the show, decided to focus on her tight gold dress, rather than her performance.

“It’s the real world, you should choose more appropriate clothes or shed some pounds,” he told the then 21-year-old in front of the country.

The inappropriate comment caused widespread backlash with fans criticising the male judge for objectifying and body-shaming Paulini.

Reflecting on the encounter on last night’s episode of I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here, Dicko told his campmate that he received a letter from a father shortly after the Idol episode aired, who said the degrading remark triggered his daughter’s eating disorder.

“He said, ‘This is your fault. She was an Australian Idol fan and when you said that comment to Paulini, she spiralled out of control and she is now in hospital, she might die and if she does, I am going to hold you personally responsible,'” he told Woody.

The now 60-year-old said that he had a “pretty terse conversation” with the father, before speaking to a psychologist who told him that eating disorders can be set off by real work events, like his comment.

“To feel that my words had driven a beautiful young girl, the apple of her father’s eye, into a hospital ward where she could die — it’s really hard,” Dicko said, as he broke down in tears.

“You’ve got to accept responsibility, you know, and I’m prepared to accept in that long society struggle to get there, I’m one of the villains that brought us here and I can’t change that,” he said.

Dicko, who is now the father of two girls, added that while the initial comment still haunts him, it’s helped him change his ways.

“I’d like to have learned from it [and] I’d like the world to have learned from it. I certainly don’t have the slightest inkling of bailing someone up for the way they look these days.”

In the same conversation, Dicko clarified that his intent wasn’t to hurt Paulini, but to protect her.

“If Paulini had come to me at the record company and… she’d have walked out in that dress and said, ‘This is what I’m wearing to the ARIAs’ I would have advised her against it. I didn’t want to hurt her. And I promise you, if she was to walk a red carpet looking like that 20 years ago, there would have been comments made in women’s magazines.”

This sounds an awful lot like a “I’m sorry but,” type of defence. And it’s especially questionable considering Dicko chose to make the body-shaming comment about Paulini on Australia’s most popular TV show at the time, rather than in private. Choices, huh!