Following Sunday’s throat-grasping of Nigella Lawson by husband Charles Saatchi, a Melbourne radio presenter this morning lamented Nigella’s a) absence of assertiveness and b) tweet pic of a buttered bagel around the same time the abuse-smeared images started circulating. The presenter of 3AW radio, Dee Dee Dunleavy, wrote a blog post that virtually amounted to just one word she longed to shout in Nigella’s face: PRIORITIES.
After
these events unfolded; events that pretty well labelled Saatchi an abusive spouse, Nigella reportedly packed a suitcase and left their home. All good on that front. But with regards to the bagel tweet, Dunleavy’s main issues are apparently Nigella’s failure to properly reinstate her position as the strong admirable woman she is – or something to that effect – all because she was tweeting snacks?
Dunleavy has somewhat ignored the delicacy of what was already a very public situation, and the delicacy of an issue as deeply personal as alleged domestic abuse, and has criticised Lawson for failing to address the situation with her millions of followers.
See here some excerpts of the name/shame blog post:
“Why, at about the same time the pictures went viral on the internet, did Nigella post a picture of a buttered, toasted bagel on her official Twitter page, as though nothing else was on her mind but food?”
“We think you are strong, beautiful and successful. We imagine your home is warm and smells of cinnamon, and if we dropped in we’d get a hug and a feed.”
She closed with: “If you want us to buy your books and watch your shows on how to run our kitchens, then we need you to make a stand on domestic violence”, which sounds awfully threatening and sadly void of bagels.
She’s since come under fire for her comments, with members of the public accusing her of ‘victimising’ a victim.
Since that, she’s penned another
blog post that apologises, stating “The fact that I have copped a torrent of abuse today for urging her to take a stand against domestic violence pales into insignificance compared to what she must be going through.”
Here is the bagel pic in case you wondered:
Title image by Tim Whitby via Getty
