Sam Armytage Told Paps To “Piss Off”, But It Seems They Weren’t After Her

If anyone is justified in holding a grudge against the paparazzi population of Sydney, it’s Sam Armytage, especially after the “granny panties” incident of a few years ago, when the Dail Mail was forced to apologise for publishing a story and photographs focusing on her underwear.

She may have had this in mind last weekend when she published an Instagram photo of herself and some friends on the beach in North Bondi, after spotting what appeared to be a paparazzi drone nearby. Alongside the hashtag “piss off paps”, she fumed:

“Lovely, quiet, relaxing Sunday swimming with friends … and four paparazzi and a drone. Bastards.  Trying to ruin my weekend bliss and make money from pics (sic) of me in my swimmers. Well here’s one for free.”

Cutting paparazzi off at the source is a pretty canny way to get around them, and it seemed like the story had ended there, but since the photo appeared on Instagram, a number of Sydney snappers have come forward to say that they weren’t actually chasing Sam Armytage at all.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BfUhR7nFFo6/?hl=en&taken-by=sam_armytage

According to one anonymous photographer, was among several in Bondi that day, they were attempting to snap pictures of movie star Kate Hudson, who was dining at nearby North Bondi Fish with boyfriend Danny Fujikawa. Another anonymous pap said:

“I can’t speak for everyone, but it would be very unlikely that a drone would be put up to get pictures of someone on the beach. The images are usually low res, you can’t even really tell someone’s face, so they are not used for that. There’s a lot of hobby and kids with drones around at the moment.”

While it seems plausible that photos of an international movie star would probably sell for more money than photos of a Sydney TV personality who goes to Bondi all the time, we’re still being asked to take the paparazzi at their word here, and that’s … a pretty big ask, frankly.

For all we know, they were out there trying to snap pics of Armytage and now they’re just feeling salty about it. Also, “guys, you’ve got it all wrong, we were trying to invade the privacy of a totally different person” doesn’t exactly stand up as a strong defense.

I guess we’ll never know what truly happened that sunny day in Bondi, but we know for sure that …

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