Opinion

I was a fool and I’m sincerely sorry for my jokes about movie massacre

bruno bouchetIn this guest post, Bruno Bouchet explains how a series off ill-advised, drunken tweets making jokes about the Colorado massacre today lost him his job on Australia’s best known radio show.

For years, I’ve been an avid reader of Mumbrella and have even fantasised about maybe one day having an article written around me on the site. Never in a million years did I imagine it’d be me writing an article about how I committed career suicide at the age of 26.   

I’m not going even going to pretend that this article is anything other than a sincere apology for my sick tweets. I’m beyond disgusted with myself and will forever live with the regret of what I wrote and who I’ve affected. To say that my tweets were revolting and insensitive is putting it lightly, I honestly believe I deserve to be unemployed for the rest of my life.

Given that I was so public with my tweets on Friday night, it’s only fair that I be public in expressing my heartfelt apology for what I did. I owe a lot of people an explanation for what I wrote, so I hope that the following paragraphs will shed some light on one of my life’s biggest regret. By the way, absolutely nothing from my explanation should be misinterpreted as me trying to excuse myself or weasel out of what I’ve done – I’m 100 per cent responsible for where I am now.

For the past three years I’ve been trying to keep on top of depression and border line personality disorder. Both are incredibly common things to have and I applaud those that have successfully stayed on top of it. I wasn’t one of those people. Instead, I despised who I was and gradually started to create a new world for myself through social media. The Bruno that was constantly scared, nervous and on the edge of a breakdown was instead replaced by this fabricated online persona who was full of bravado and lived the world’s greatest life. When everything was going to shit in my life, I was still able to save face through Twitter and Facebook.

Over time, I started posting more and more outrageous things on social media. It’s not that I necessarily believed or agreed with what I was posting, it just “fit” the image of this alpha Bruno I had created. When you hate yourself so much, it’s an incredible relief to be able to escape to this utopia where people find you funny and entertaining.

On Friday night, I had been drinking. To be honest, I drink quite a bit and I’ve rarely screwed up, so I don’t want to give off the impression that I’m trying to blame the booze for what I did. I was heading home from a function and as most people do when they’re bored and in the backseat of a cab – I jumped on Twitter. The story of the Colorado shootings had broken a few hours ago and I was trying to get my head across the severity of what had gone down.

What happened next, I’ll regret for the rest of my life. I started posting jokes about the shootings. Why? It was a mix of wanting to bring humour to an otherwise tragic situation. It was also – and I’m being completely up front here – a case of me wanting some attention. Like a toddler does when the adults are talking and feels ignored, I tried to get everyone’s attention. Yeah – I know what you’re thinking – I’m a dick. What I posted was dreadful and painted me as an insensitive and hateful idiot.

From day one, Southern Cross Austereo has been terrific towards me. The company’s always been encouraging and understanding – that’s what makes them one of the leaders in the Australian media industry. The fact is, I gave SCA very little choice but to sack me. I deserved it and they did the right thing. It wasn’t my first incident where I had posted something highly inappropriate and only a fool – like me – would continue posting this type of content even though I was told not to.

A lot is written about The Kyle and Jackie O Show – but the truth is working on the show has been one of the greatest experiences in my career. It was an honour to work alongside them and it kills me to no longer be a part of this family. I’m angry at myself for having dragged the show into my scandal, believe me – everyone on the show works too hard to have to put up with my appalling behaviour on social media.

I’m quite certain that 99 per cent of people reading this are far and beyond intellectually superior to me and would never throw their careers away like I have. But if you are part of this one per cent – please be careful with what you post online – an entire career can be killed in 140-characters or less.

  • Bruno Bouchet was guest and talent producer on the Today network’s Kyle & Jackie O Show
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