Yassmin Abdel-Magied may be Australia’s ‘most publicly hated Muslim’ but she seems happy to poke fun at herself.
The activist was mercilessly roasted by comedian Tom Gleeson on Hard Chat about the fallout from her ‘disrespectful’ Anzac Day Facebook post.
Her seven word missive ‘lest we forget (Manus, Nauru, Syria, Palestine…)’ stirred up so much outrage she left the country for London months later.
Yassmin Abdel-Magied was mercilessly roasted by comedian Tom Gleeson on Hard Chat about the fallout from her ‘disrespectful’ Anzac Day Facebook post
She appeared to revel in her notoriety when asked if her similar Tweet on Remembrance Day last month was ‘just attention seeking’.
‘I missed the death threats, they really give you a sense of importance,’ she quipped on the segment of The Weekly with Charlie Pickering on the ABC.
Gleeson had a brutal follow up: ‘Do you think that every Anzac Day we should have a minute’s silence for your career?’ after her ABC show was scrapped a month after her post.
Without a hint of irony, Abdel-Magied responded: ‘I think that’d be a little disrespectful to the diggers.’
Gleeson awkwardly paused for a few seconds before suggesting she should start a hashtag called #LestWeForgetToWriteStupidS**tOnFacebook next year.
Her seven word missive ‘lest we forget (Manus, Nauru, Syria, Palestine…)’ stirred up so much outrage she left the country for London months later
Gleeson asked her: ‘Do you think that every Anzac Day we should have a minute’s silence for your career?’ after her ABC show was scrapped a month after her post
After joking that she ‘looked like a tourist’ and asking if she ever felt bad about wearing a hat indoors, Gleeson upped the anti even more.
‘When you’re in London, do you hang out with Rolf Harris so you’re not the most hated Australian?’ he said.
The comedian then moved on to Abdel-Magied likening her relationship with Australia to ‘dating an abusive guy’.
‘What are you doing here? You should leave!’ he told her.
When asked if her similar Tweet on Remembrance Day last month was ‘just attention seeking’, she joked that she ‘missed the death threats’ that made her feel important
Gleeson pulled out a box of Anzac biscuits and offered his guest one, remarking should could eat them because they were halal
‘I mean, I’ve been told to leave a number of times, but we know how hard it is,’ she replied.
‘Sometimes you’re like ‘maybe they didn’t mean it’, and you come back, and then you’re like ‘oh, yeah, they’re actually d**ks.’
Gleeson nervously chuckled before saying: ‘Alright, that should help this go viral.’
Finally, Gleeson pulled out a box of Anzac biscuits and offered his guest one, remarking should could eat them because they were halal.
‘Are they though?’ she asked with some scepticism.
‘Well, I don’t know, but I pointed them towards Mecca when I killed them,’ Gleeson shot back.
Abdel-Magied earlier forlornly reflected on how she got from being awarded young Queenslander of the year in 2010 (pictured) to her tumultuous past year
Abdel-Magied’s reaction to the Hard Chat segment followed forlorn reflections on her tumultuous past year.
‘I’m in a place now where they took everything away from me and I’m now someone with nothing left to lose,’ she said on The Project.
‘That was really bad but at the same time you don’t know how strong you are until you go through something really tough.
‘I went from being this young Queenslander of the year… I was the good Muslim girl… then everything exploded.’