You come at the kings, you better not miss.
David ‘Luttsy’ Lutteral, the Brisbane Nova radio host who claimed Andy Lee had pilfered his concept for Channel 9′s newest hit True Story, has unreservedly pulled that allegation.
Earlier this week, Lutteral said Lee “word for word” copied his 2014 pitch for a similar show, after they had a chat over drinks in New York City. He even said a pilot for the show, tentatively-titled Cracking Yarns, had been halfway-filmed.
Channel 9 shot down that claim the same day.
Now, Lutteral has walked his earlier statements way back, saying “some things were said on our breakfast radio program on Monday about Hamish [Blake] and Andy that were pretty serious allegations about the concept of their program true story being stolen…
“I fully accept now that that was not the case.”
While claiming ownership to the concept of dramatising real-life events always seemed a little audacious, Lutteral says actually seeing Channel 9’s 2013 concept document spurred the retraction.
“It is clear to me that they had conceived and documented the format for true story over a year before I met with Andy in New York,” Lutteral says.
Lutteral went on to say sorry to True Story’s masterminds, saying “while I pitched a concept that had some similarities I accept that Hamish and Andy came up with their idea independently from mine.
“I apologise to Hamish and Andy and their team for implying they took my idea.”
FWIW, the shot itself has been going great guns. The first episode debuted to largely positive reviews, including from the regular Aussie who experienced the yarn IRL.
