Tony Armstrong has made one hell of a lasting impression on Australia's media landscape.
The AFL player and 2023 Logie winner turned television presenter has gone from success to success, having plenty of funny moments on screen, while also shedding light on important issues.
In 2021 Tony was on Network 10's panel show The Project, when he weighed in on Incarceration Nation, a NITV documentary about the overrepresentation of Indigenous Australians in the prison system.
"This country still can't accept it's a racist country. You still can't accept it's built off the back of slavery, it's built off the back of dispossession, it's built off the back of rape and pillage of Indigenous people," he said. "And we've just got to be better."
It's not the first time the Barranbinya man's words have cut through.
Though Tony is still coming to grips with his surging public profile as the new sports presenter on ABC News Breakfast, he's seizing the opportunity. But it hasn't always come easily to him.
Tony was raised in Western Sydney by his white mother (his father left before he was born) and was one of just three Indigenous children at his boarding school in Victoria.
"You put up all these defence mechanisms without even realising it. Every room you walk into, you're basically the only Blackfella. Everywhere you go, you're always a point of difference," he told Mamamia's No Filter podcast.
"I used to get pretty nervous, because kids are ruthless. They'll just come out and ask questions. And when I was younger, I didn't know sh*t about [culture], really... So I got bloody good at ripping yarns, because when you're a kid, you want to come across as knowing who you are."
Top Comments