‘Mustafa’ From Waleed’s Logie Speech Outed As ‘Here Come The Habibs’ Star

Last night, Waleed Aly accepted his first Gold Logie with a speech that thanked his co-hosts, crew on The Project, and his wife Susan Carland, before turning his attention to a man in the room named Mustafa. 

The thing is, most people there wouldn’t even recognise him by that name. 

Aly told an audience full of media professionals he “came up to me, introduced themselves and said to me, ‘I really hope you win. My name is Mustafa. But I can’t use that name because I won’t get a job’.”
Less than a day later, Mustafa has apparently been identified as Here Come The Habibs actor Tyler De Nawi. According to Fairfax, the 27-year-old is indeed the man Aly was referring to.
Well, De Nawi had this to say on the matter:

De Nawi was outed care of his acting manager Anthony Kidd, who told news.com.au the name change was just “something Tyler felt he needed to do.”

De Nawi’s outing comes after many winners drew attention to the issue of diversity in Australian television; winners of Most Outstanding Children’s Program Ready For This – which is comprised of a largely indigenous cast – relayed the importance of indigenous representation on the small screen. 
Of course, a barnstorming speech from newly-inducted Hall Of Famer Noni Hazelhurst absolutely smashed bigotry in the industry.

The former Play School host – what is it with kids show’s leading the way, here? – said “things are clearly changing, but they are changing glacially slowly.”

Aly said “if tonight means anything… that is the Australian public, our audience, as far as they’re concerned, there is absolutely no reason that can’t change.” 

Maybe we’ll be seeing a few more Mustafas in the future, then.

Oh, we were also on deck at the Logies Red Carpet, and we had a sneaky chat with the bloke before he went on to take the top gong. Have a gander right here:

Source: Fairfax. 

Photo: Robert Cianflone / Getty. 

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