Brittany Hockley brutally slammed by judges on Dancing With The Stars - after revealing she suffered a X-rated wardrobe malfunction
Dancing With The Stars returned to Channel Seven on Sunday night with a bang - and one contestant who definitely made an impression was radio star Brittany Hockley.
But it wasn't all glitter and glamour for the Life Uncut podcaster, who was slammed by notoriously tough judge Craig Revel Horwood, who didn't hold back.
'You looked like you were drunk and lost at the party,' Craig said bluntly after Brittany's high-energy cha-cha performance with partner Craig Monley.
'There was no hip action… It was too upright. Every spin lacked spotting. And point your feet in the lifts, darling. No clumpy feet!'
Despite the scathing critique, Brittany managed to win over the other judges – and the audience – with her infectious energy and unfiltered charm.
From A-list scandals and red carpet mishaps to exclusive pictures and viral moments, subscribe to the DailyMail's new showbiz newsletter to stay in the loop.
She even shocked the crowd by revealing a wardrobe malfunction that could have turned X-rated during rehearsals.
'For everyone playing at home, my skirt came off today… multiple times while I was dancing,' she told co-host Sonia Kruger.
'It threw my confidence in the rehearsal, thinking it would happen again. And no one needs to see me in a G-string!'
Fellow judge Sharna Burgess praised Brittany's resilience, saying: 'You had a crappy dress rehearsal, but an amazing show. You're infectious to watch.'
Helen Richey added: 'You're totally uninhibited. Sure, there were a few hiccups, but you looked like you were loving every minute of it. You're full of potential.'
Mark Wilson echoed similar sentiments, describing Brittany as 'vivacious' and full of 'beautiful energy'.
The judges weren't the only ones watching closely – host Sonia Kruger couldn't help but joke that this was the 'first time in eight seasons' she'd seen Craig Monley smile.
Brittany, 37, later laughed off the ordeal, heading upstairs to the skybox to reflect on the performance.
Meanwhile, 7 presenter Michael Usher (pictured) shocked everyone, soaring to the top of the leaderboard with 27 points and unanimous praise from the judges
'I had fun,' she said. 'Definitely nailed it better in practice. Still catching my breath!'
But Brittany wasn't the only star making waves in the season premiere.
Olympic boxer Harry Garside delivered an energetic jive full of daring lifts, prompting Mark to jump to his feet and demand an encore.
Despite scoring 21, the panel was split - Sharna called for more 'refinement,' Craig called it 'messy,' while Helen boldly predicted Harry could be 'the heavyweight in this competition.'
Swimming legend Susie O'Neil performed a shaky tango, landing the night's lowest score of 13. But the judges admired her courage and clear improvement since rehearsals.
Meanwhile, 7NEWS presenter Michael Usher shocked everyone, soaring to the top of the leaderboard with 27 points and unanimous praise from the judges for his musicality and charisma.
Closing the show, Rebecca Gibney lit up the floor with a cheeky cha-cha-cha.
The performance, while technically flawed, was a crowd-pleaser. 'So wrong, it was right,' said Mark.
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The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Yolngu power: how a small Indigenous community in the Top End came to dominate Australian art
It starts with panoramic views of a small town in high-noon heat: a widescreen wrap-around video, cycling slowly from streetscapes to the town's perimeter, with glimpses of the Arafura sea and red dirt vistas. 'Slow down … walk with us,' wall text invites us. Nearby hangs a series of rusty and battered road signs etched with coruscating designs. 'Road closed due to ceremony' reads one; 'You are on the Arnhem Land Aboriginal Land Trust' reads another. This is Yirrkala: a small community in the north-eastern tip of the Top End and a huge presence in contemporary Australian art. Yolŋu artists working with Yirrkala's arts centre have been constant fixtures at the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art awards (Natsiaa) for the last three decades and have been the subject of surveys at the Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA), NGV, Australian National Maritime Museum and National Museum of Australia, as well as major international touring exhibitions. Now these artists are being celebrated at the Art Gallery of NSW (AGNSW) in the exhibition Yolŋu power: the art of Yirrkala. What makes art from this part of Australia so powerful? Curator Cara Pinchbeck says it's partly the Yolŋu appetite for innovation, combined with the stable leadership of Yirrkala's arts centre, Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka, who is co-curator of the AGNSW exhibition. But mostly, Pinchbeck says, it's down to Yolŋu culture: the numerous song cycles detailing the creation stories of the various clans, and their connected designs – from which all art flows. Underpinning this is gurrutu: an all-encompassing system of connection that maps out each person's relationship to not only other people but every other thing. Even just breezing through Yolŋu Power, you get a sense of the vast richness of this culture and cosmology, across almost 300 works in a kaleidoscope of styles, mediums and subjects – from ochred bark paintings of creation stories and intricately decorated larrakitj (hollow poles) to digital projections, detailed depictions of plant life and minimalist abstractions evoking the Milky Way and the estuaries where fresh and saltwater meet. But if you take the time to really read the wall text and look at the detail of the artwork, an even richer story unfolds. It's the story of a people for whom art is inextricably enmeshed with their understanding of the universe and themselves; a community who, since the 1930s, have used art as a tool of cultural diplomacy with outsiders; and a constellation of individuals who have found ways to maintain millennia-old cultural practices, while boldly innovating for changing times. Past the panoramic video and etched road signs at the exhibition entrance, you pass through a darkened curvilinear chamber hung with a series of Rumbal (body) paintings in ochre on bark, depicting ceremonial designs from the 16 clans around Yirrkala. These designs – or miny'tji – are more than decorative: they express identity, ancestral connections, spiritual beliefs and Country itself. They are sacred and ancient. But these works were painted within the last few years, a statement that the cultural foundations and connections remain strong and vital. These miny'tji are the root of what audiences will see in the next rooms. Sometimes the patterns are in plain sight: the shimmering strings of diamonds in works by artists from Maḏarrpa and Gumatj clans, or the striations of straight and curved lines in works by Marrakulu and Rirratjiŋu artists. Sometimes they're merely hinted at – and even when they're not visible in the artwork, they're essential; the indelible cultural DNA of each maker. Sign up to Saved for Later Catch up on the fun stuff with Guardian Australia's culture and lifestyle rundown of pop culture, trends and tips after newsletter promotion Beyond the Rumbal chamber, the exhibition proceeds more or less chronologically, starting with the frontrunners who first painted these body designs on bark, adopting art as a form of cultural diplomacy with balanda/ŋäpaki (non-Yolŋu people). The exhibition closes with an explosion of dazzling innovation, including bark paintings using magenta printer-toner (by Noŋgirrŋa Marawili) and electric blue acrylic (Dhambit Munuŋgurr), and intricately etched sculptures made from mining detritus such as rubber conveyor belts and aluminium signs (by artists including Gunybi Ganambarr). Highlights include detailed and meticulous bark paintings by pioneering artist and activist Narritjin Maymuru, who contributed to the Näku Dhäruk (Yirrkala bark petitions) of 1963, which asserted Yolŋu sovereignty over land leased by the government to mining companies; and shimmering bark paintings by Djambawa Marrawili, including one from the Saltwater series that was successfully used by clans of the Blue Mud Bay area to assert sea rights in the federal court. As the exhibition proceeds, works by women proliferate, the visible shift of senior men permitting their daughters to paint their clans' miny'tji. Other women opted for everyday subjects. An entire room is given over to exquisite secular works on bark, canvas and larrakitj by female artists, including major figures such as Nyapanyapa Yunupiŋu and Gulumbu Yunupiŋu. Plant life is strongly represented, with Malaluba Gumana's mesmerising paintings of dhatam (water lilies) and Djirrirra Wunuŋmurra's delicate depiction of wild yams. Mulkun Wirrpanda's illustrations of flowering vines are animated and projected over a termite-mound sculpture, in a luminous installation at the exhibition's centre. Yolŋu Power is best appreciated with a calm mind and careful attention. For best effect, start in the gallery's cavernous, subterranean Tank, where Buku's digital unit, The Mulka Project, has created an immersive installation evoking Yirrkala's changing seasons. Over 19 minutes, via a soundtrack featuring ancestral songs and field recordings from Country, and a shifting lighting palette, Yalu (Yolŋu for nest, signifying sanctuary) takes viewers through a seasonal cycle in the landscape from which Yirrkala's art flows. Slow down, breathe deeply – and then head upstairs to take a walk with this extraordinary community of artists. Yolŋu power: the art of Yirrkala is at Art Gallery of NSW's Naala Badu building until 6 October.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Why can't you catch a train or tram to Sydney's beaches – and are we dreamin' to think new rail lines could be built?
Michael Caton enjoys living a short walk from Sydney's Bondi beach, but when the actor needs to venture into the heart of the city for an appointment, he knows to never schedule anything before late morning, well after peak hour. 'You wouldn't dream of taking the bus in the morning,' the 82-year-old says on speaker phone while taking his Toyota RAV4 for a drive. 'They're all full. They just don't really do the job.' When it comes to telling Australians about dreams, Caton has form, of course. His character Darryl Kerrigan in the classic film The Castle coined the catchphrase 'tell him he's dreamin''. Caton also fronted a 1998 campaign by Bondi locals opposed to a controversial plan to extend Sydney's Eastern Suburbs railway line from Bondi Junction to the beach. 'It will be the end of the line for Bondi,' Caton proclaimed at protests against the privately led train extension, the ABC reported at the time. Crowds chanted back at Caton in response: 'Tell 'em they're dreamin'.' Sydney's expansive rail network is Australia's busiest, but it's almost impossible to catch a train to a beach to catch some waves. That's despite a long history of proposals to extend lines to the city's world-famous beaches. Unlike Rio de Janeiro's Copacabana beach, New York's Coney Island and even Melbourne's Brighton beach, residents and tourists can't catch a train to Sydney's globally recognised Bondi or Manly – or indeed any ocean beach in the eastern suburbs or north of the city. (Cronulla beach, 20km south of the city centre, can be reached by train, but the trip takes an hour.) Instead, beachgoers are forced into often-crowded buses or cars, the latter being expensive and difficult to park on busy days. Roads in summer can be heavily congested. Why Sydney's beaches remain inaccessible is explained by how the city expanded, as well as a mid-20th-century decision described as 'organised vandalism' and persistent efforts by beachside locals to limit public transport and a perceived influx of 'outsiders'. It might be hard to imagine today, but rail was once the main mode of transport to the city's beaches. Railways were first built in New South Wales primarily to send agricultural products from rural areas into Sydney, says Dr Geoffrey Clifton, a senior lecturer in transport and logistics management at the University of Sydney. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email Heavy rail lines were gradually extended and, as Sydney expanded, so did the train network. By the late 1800s, light rail – or trams – emerged as an alternative. 'Trams made more sense in the east of Sydney, where distances were shorter and the land was already developed,' Clifton says. But rural politicians and leaders with interests – commonly land speculation – in the comparatively underdeveloped western suburbs continued to support heavy rail. 'It was a competition between those who saw trams as the future and those who believed in trains.' Tram lines sprang up across Sydney's north shore and eastern suburbs, including to the beaches. Sydney developed one of the largest tram networks in the world and services were fast – in many cases speedier than the few modern lines resurrected 100 years later. The expression 'shoot through like a Bondi tram' was born. But Sydney, like much of the world, was then changed by the car. 'Firstly, after world war one, returning soldiers who'd driven trucks in the war bought themselves bus licences, and that drove suburban development away from trams and started the sprawl of Sydney,' Clifton says. 'After world war two, everyone was buying cars, patronage started to drop off, and by that stage the tram network needed serious investment and renewal.' Instead, leaders chose to tear up Sydney's tram network and replaced it with buses, most of which still run today. The decision was popular at a time when buses were cheaper to run and could cope with demand, but it is now seen as foolish by many transport experts. Mathew Hounsell, a researcher at the University of Technology Sydney, describes the destruction as 'the largest organised vandalism in our nation's history'. In the decades since the last service on Sydney's original tram network concluded in 1961, there have been campaigns for new train lines and extensions to beachside suburbs. A 1970s study proposed building a heavy rail line from North Sydney station to the farthest of the northern beaches. Half a kilometre of tunnel was constructed towards Mosman, but the plan never progressed, mostly because of local opposition and challenges in acquiring land and traversing difficult terrain. There were plans to extend rail through Sydney's eastern suburbs – including further than the limited Bondi beach proposal that Caton objected to in the late 1990s. The Eastern Suburbs line to Bondi Junction in the 1970s was a rare example of a rail line built to an already densified part of Sydney in the post-tram era. During construction, about 100 metres of tunnel was built beyond Bondi Junction towards the beach. But it has since been repurposed to turn trains around. There were also proposals for extensions to Maroubra and Malabar that failed to materialise. The resistance to adding rail infrastructure to already settled suburbs was evident in Woollahra, where a partially constructed station on the Eastern Suburbs line was never completed. Partially built platforms remain visible but unused due to resident objections in the 1970s. Recent calls to finish building Woollahra station go to the heart of the nimby v yimby ('yes in my back yard') tension. Generally, increased housing density has been the basis for new train lines being laid in Australia 'A lot of the problem with why these proposals go nowhere is because these suburbs are already well developed, there's already higher density and apartments,' Clifton says. 'So there's less incentive for governments to spend the money without the potential to get an uplift in housing, a return on investment.' The transport academic says this philosophy dictated development in Sydney well before the current Minns government's transport-oriented development program. 'The problem for beach suburbs is that they already had the rail investment when they were growing, and while they've only become denser since, the tram lines have been torn up,' Clifton says. Despite the lack of a train station at Bondi beach, people still flock there. Traffic and parking woes have intensified in the decades since locals successfully defeated the rail proposal. Buses that have filled the void are among Sydney's busiest. Annual ridership on the 333 'from the city to the sea' bus route, which runs as often as every three minutes, has exceeded 8 million in recent years, significantly more than some of Sydney's heavy rail lines such as the T5. Caton is frustrated when catching a crowded bus that has to contend with traffic snaking up the hills of Bondi towards the city – but he doesn't regret campaigning against the train line. 'The train did absolutely nothing for the locals, sure, it was good for getting more people to Bondi, but it didn't do anything for us,' Caton says. His opposition was based on the proposal's lack of additional stations to serve residents along Bondi Road or the north of the suburb. Having just one station at the beach would have led to chaos, he insists. Caton says his anti-trains stance was not nimbyism but admits that in the years since he has rallied with fellow residents against several other proposals regarding local traffic and moves to reduce street parking. 'We are fighting all of these changes, but it's because they're stupid decisions; they don't consult the people who live here.' He says a train to the beach would make more sense elsewhere, such as at Maroubra. For now, Sydney must make do with low-capacity buses. An articulated bus such as those that run to Bondi can hold about 110 passengers compared with an average Sydney train service that moves 1,200 people. Buses also have a bumpier ride, are susceptible to traffic jams and aren't always accessible for older passengers, people with young children and those with disabilities. The lack of trains makes getting to beaches in Sydney harder but the nimby campaigns haven't made the city's sand exclusive. 'There are no gatekeepers,' says Louis Nowra, the author of a biography of Sydney. He notes that the bus between Bondi Junction and the beach only adds 10 minutes to the journey for people travelling from western Sydney, for example. 'If you live in Bondi, you have to put up with crowds and cars. I don't see a train system alleviating that,' Nowra says. Many people prefer less busy parts of Sydney, argues Nowra, who was turned off Bondi after attending a recent literary festival. 'I found the crowds claustrophobic, so I think Bondi has reached saturation point without more fucking visitors.' Asked if it's more difficult to live in Bondi in 2025 compared with 1998, when the rail extension was proposed, Caton is frank. 'Oh God yes, but a train would have turned Bondi into Surfers Paradise.' Given the transport-oriented development focus of the current NSW government, hopes for new rail infrastructure to the beaches are subdued. Clifton says extending existing light rail from Randwick to Coogee beach and from Kingsford to Maroubra beach are the most plausible options. But it would need significant support and campaigning from the local council and community, with Clifton pointing to the City of Sydney mayor Clover Moore's continued lobbying for the George Street light rail. 'If local communities want that, they should be developing plans and … advocating to government for those extensions,' Clayton says. The Randwick council mayor, Dylan Parker, says he would welcome government investing in such extensions. However, the council has not been actively lobbying for them. Guardian Australia understands the incline on Coogee Bay Road has been identified as a barrier to extending the light rail to Coogee beach. While trams historically travelled that route, the gradient could be problematic for the larger rolling stock in use today. Outside of extending light rail, future projects in Sydney are for driverless Metro trains, with the era of extending Sydney's heavy rail network, which has been hamstrung by maintenance problems and union disagreements, considered over. The NSW government is considering potential eastern extensions of the Sydney Metro West line set to open next decade. Proposals include running trains from the CBD to Green Square, the University of New South Wales and on to Maroubra and Malabar – which Randwick council supports.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Chris Hammer: ‘The suburbs can be delightfully sinister. The blandness is a great setting for crime books'
Grey clouds are gathering overhead as Chris Hammer parks on the edge of the Jerrabomberra wetlands, a reserve bordering Canberra's Lake Burley Griffin. It will be ironic if it rains – Hammer is here to talk about drought. In 2008, long before Hammer had begun writing the crime novels that would propel him to national and global fame, he was starting his first book, The River: A Journey through the Murray-Darling. Hammer had been working as a journalist in the parliamentary press gallery, but left to travel the length of the Murray-Darling from its headwaters in Queensland to its mouth in South Australia. It was the height of the millennium drought and Hammer's resulting travelogue is a moving account of parched landscapes and the people trying to live in them. Fifteen years after the book was released, Melbourne University Press has republished it with a new introduction by Hammer. As we set off on one of the tracks that weave through this tapestry of marshes, woodland and grassland, Hammer admits he hadn't reread The River until he was presented with the opportunity to republish it. 'There were bits I was going, 'Oh, that's a bit overwrought',' he says, laughing at himself. 'Then there were other bits, I thought, 'That's quite good. Did I do that?'' Nearly two decades after his journey, more has changed than Hammer's writing. He has left journalism behind and become one of Australia's most celebrated crime writers, producing a string of novels that have shot to the top of bestseller lists around the world. Scrublands, his first, has now been adapted into a major TV series. The Murray-Darling has changed, too. In the new introduction, he reflects on how many of the dams he described as dustbowls are now overflowing, how rivers that were dry are now full. 'Australia has greened once more,' he writes. 'Complacency has returned.' But when asked how to counter today's complacency, he dials down that damning statement. 'Some people are deeply concerned that the climate is becoming more volatile,' says Hammer, who speaks with a quiet authority in measured, thoughtful sentences. 'It's not just a gradual increase in heat, it's maybe deeper and more severe droughts and certainly bigger and more frequent floods. But then you'll talk to other farmers and they'll be quite insouciant, saying, 'We've always had cycles of drought and flood.'' The Murray-Darling Basin is so enormous – roughly the size of France and Germany combined – and home to such diverse communities who work the land in such varied ways, that it is also difficult for Hammer to make any overarching conclusions about how it has changed since his journey. Hammer doesn't expect the Murray-Darling to be a priority for the re-elected Labor government. 'It's not in crisis at the moment, so there are plenty of other things to spend money on,' he says as we loop back on ourselves, crossing over a creek into some woodland. However, if there was desire in the Labor party to introduce new laws, now would be the time. The stories in The River have fed into Hammer's blockbuster crime fiction. In person, Hammer is confident and composed, but as a writer he describes himself as a 'pantser' who develops his characters and storylines as he writes – flying by the seat of his pants rather than plotting in advance. As we walk off the paved trail on to a dirt track that skirts Jerrabomberra Pool, where six cormorants are lined up on a branch, Hammer explains that he always decides on one thing before he starts writing. 'I always start with the setting,' he says. 'It has to be right there at the beginning. It's the stage that the characters will populate, where the plots will play out. It's critical to the way I write.' Several of the rural towns featured in The River have inspired locations in his novels: Wakool inspired the fictional town of Riversend in Scrublands and The Tilt is set in the Barmah-Millewa forest. Hammer's next novel, Legacy, will be published in October. 'It's set on a reimagined Paroo River,' he reveals. 'It has no dams and no irrigation and was in the best ecological condition when I travelled during that drought.' While Hammer's locations are inspired by real places, he makes sure they're never carbon copies – although people long for them to be. 'It's intriguing. I have readers who say, 'I know that place. I grew up there. You've captured it so well,'' he says. Most of his readers, however, are not so familiar with bush towns; approximately 90% of Australians now live in cities. 'I think it's an escape for them. It gets them away from their daily commutes,' he says. Hammer personally feels connected to the bush. He grew up in Canberra in the 1960s and 70s, one of three children of a public servant father and schoolteacher mother. Much of the capital was still being developed at the time, so as a teenager Hammer was desperate to leave – and briefly did, going to university in Bathurst and getting a job in Sydney, although professional opportunities soon brought him back. He met his wife in Canberra in the early 1990s, and they have made it home for their son and daughter. 'It was a pretty boring place as a kid, but what it did have was nature,' he says. 'We'd walk in the bush a lot and go to the rivers to swim.' Today, he still finds peace in the city's parks. If he's struggling to unravel a knot in one of his plots, he goes walking in the Red Hill nature reserve rather than staring at his screen. This might suggest a somewhat dreamy approach to writing, but in general Hammer is more regimented than romantic. His work as a journalist has trained him to churn out words and hit deadlines, and he is not sentimental about deleting and rewriting entire chapters if he develops better ideas. The current popularity of books set in rural areas has led to cries that Australian writers are overlooking the rest of the country. When Christos Tsiolkas was interviewed for this column, he said writers were 'guilty of turning away from the suburbs'. 'I think there's some truth in that,' says Hammer. 'But the suburbs can be delightfully sinister – the anonymity and blandness of the suburbs is a great setting for crime books. I'm sure I'll write one at some point.' As if to prove his point, we break out of the treeline back on to the road where we're parked. One hundred metres away are rows of forgettable brick cottages, but immediately before us stands a building that looks institutional – it could have been part of a school or hospital. It is clearly abandoned, although artists have tried to prettify it with a brightly coloured mural. A quick Google search brings up rumours that it was a morgue, but a deeper dive disproves that. Still, there's something unsettling about it – it's almost like something out of Hammer's novels. 'Look,' he says, cracking a smile and pointing past the graffitied back wall. 'There's even a raven sitting on the fence.' The River by Chris Hammer (Melbourne University Press, RRP $36.99) is available now
