If you’ve been tuning in to SAS Australia, you’d know that reality TV star Locky Gilbert isn’t doing himself any favours. This is the 32-year-old’s third stint on TV, previously appearing on Australian Survivor and The Bachelor, but this time, viewers are responding to him less enthusiastically.
On Tuesday night’s episode of the military-inspired show, Locky came across as out of touch after making a dig towards people who work “normal jobs”.
“In the last 10 years, I really haven’t worked,” he started off by saying. “It blows my mind, people get up and go to work every single day. Living a mundane, boring life. I’ve just done whatever I’ve wanted to do and it’s got me this far.”
It didn’t take long for the backlash to begin, with people on social media spouting expletives so inappropriate that they can’t be published here. Others lashed out at him for displaying “white male privilege”, calling him a narcissist that’s void of empathy.
But on Wednesday, the media personality took to Instagram to “clear things up”, explaining that the reason he hadn’t worked in 10 years was that “when you do what you love you don’t work a day in your life”.
“When I said I don’t know how people go to work every day, they left out the part where I said to a job they hate,” he wrote. “I have done the 12 hour days 7 days a week, working my ass off in the last 10 years of my life. I am just doing what I love so I don’t see it as work.”
He also pointed out that his partner Irena Srbinovska, who he met on The Bachelor, and her mother, are passionate healthcare professionals.
“I love that they get to do what they love,” he said. “I never meant for it to come across the way it did and I am deeply sorry if my comments offended anyone.”