As Erin Molan suffocates under a barrage of abuse for daring to sit on a seat traditionally occupied by a man, Kyle Sandilands has decided to add to it.
On Friday morning, former rugby league player and television personality Beau Ryan used his platform on KIIS 106.5’s Kyle and Jackie O Show to defend his colleague Molan, who has been placed unwittingly at the centre of an alleged ‘feud’ with former rugby league player and commentator Andrew Johns.
But despite knowing how much the abuse has affected 37-year-old Molan, Sandilands remarked: “I’ve met her, she’s lovely, but I have heard from multiple sources that she is sometimes difficult to work with.”
This is a man who has worked in radio for 27 years. He knew exactly what he was doing. Those four words, ‘difficult to work with’, will stick to Molan like tar.
Erin Molan talks about her anxiety to Show And Tell. Post continues below.
And is there anything more cowardly than using the term ‘multiple sources’?
“Not as in a diva style,” he clarified (ever heard a man described as a diva?), “but as in [she says], ‘You can’t say that, you can’t do this’. Maybe some people don’t like having to tiptoe around people?”
Molan, it would seem, who has worked in sports reporting for nearly a decade, makes decisions as part of her job, which according to Sandilands, is very upsetting for those around her.
But I’m going to go out on a limb here and say I think I know who those “multiple sources” might be. They’re Kyle. But also… Kyle.
You see, Molan used to actually work on The Kyle and Jackie O Show. In 2014, she quit after five weeks.
Molan quit after being asked what she described as “inappropriate” and “sexist” questions. She announced on The NRL Footy Show that the hosts asked her if she’d had a boob job, and how many sportsmen she’d slept with.
One talkback caller asked her, “I was watching the Footy Show last night and I noticed that your chest area has got a little bit bigger, just wondering whether you’ve done a boob job recently?”
Molan responded, “That is an incredibly personal question. I’m going to take the fifth on that one and just say I’m happy with my rig how it is. That is a weird opening question. Are you not listening to what I say about football?”
Sandilands interjected to say: “No one is listening”.
He later implied that Molan’s siblings were “coke-heads”.
In a piece to camera on The NRL Footy Show, she famously said, “To every young woman out there and every person out there, you determine your worth.”
“And if you feel you’re ever in a situation where you are not being treated with respect or the way you are being treated is not acceptable to you then you have every right to walk away and every right to stand up for yourself,” Molan concluded.
If refusing to answer inappropriate questions, and having enough respect for yourself to blatantly refuse to be the butt of a joke makes you a difficult woman, then may we all be difficult women.
May the workforce be full of them.
Top Comments
How does Kyle still have a job? Honestly in this climate who is letting his voice go to air.
And why does he even get a mention,I mean hes known in the city where he broadcasts on an FM station,but other than that he holds no currency.Erin reaches a wider audience than he does.Maybe thats it,plus the fact that she is in a job that was once the preserve of men,and there could be some jealousys there