Lidia Thorpe has opened up about her complicated relationship with her father, saying he ‘threw her under the bus’ after calling her ‘racist’ during a TV interview.
The Indigenous senator told activist Tom Tanuki that her father, Roy Illingsworth, had been ‘texting me all morning telling me he loves me even though he threw me under the bus on Andrew Bolt last night’.
Mr Illingsworth branded his daughter as a ‘very racist person’ on Sky News Australia last week, claiming her power as a senator had ‘gone to her head’.
It came just days after footage surfaced of the senator calling patrons at a Melbourne strip club ‘white c****’ and mocking the size of their genitals.
‘The way I see it, the way she is and the way she’s changed over the years, she’s a very racist person,’ Mr Illingworth, who has English-Irish heritage, said.
The Indigenous senator (right) told activist Tom Tanuki (left) that her father, Roy Illingsworth, had been ‘texting me all morning telling me he loves me even though he threw me under the bus on Andrew Bolt last night’ in reference to an interview on Sky News
‘She doesn’t acknowledge any of her white side. I’m a bit disappointed in the way she’s been carrying on lately.
‘Because after all, she does have English background as well as Irish, the convict side of the English.’
Mr Illingsworth revealed he and his daughter only speak on birthdays or Father’s Day and that he has no contact with her children.
‘She’s said a lot of bad and evil things to me over the years,’ he claimed.
‘We still love each other, and, at the end of the day, she’s still my daughter.’
In his interview with the senator, Mr Tanuki told the senator he admired how she was ‘ostensibly bulls*** free’.
‘And that’s always got me into trouble,’ she replied.
Roy Illingworth (pictured) who claimed his daughter had become ‘a very racist person’ in an interview with Sky News Australia’s Andrew Bolt last week
‘Because I’m a straight shooter, straight talker, I’ve got nothing to hide, and people struggle with that. And they want me to conform to what?’ she said.
‘What do you want me to be like? Do you want me to be like Pauline Hanson, do you want me to be like Jacinta Price? You know, what’s a good model politician that you want me to be like?’
The senator said while her life had its complications, she was a ‘loving person’ who wanted to lead the left and the conservatives on a ‘journey of peace and healing’.
She has been widely criticised following the publication of footage of her screaming at a group of men outside Maxine’s Gentlemen’s Club in Melbourne – including by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese who said she should ‘get some help’.
In a statement, the senator said she can’t ‘go out without being harassed by racists’ and said that is an example of the same ‘racism that Blak people deal with every day in this colony’.
‘On Saturday night I was provoked and stood up for myself. Not one person was hurt,’ she said.
‘The story should be about the racists brazenly harassing a senator.
‘The story is that I can’t go out without being harassed by racists.’
Senator Thorpe has been widely criticised following the publication of footage of her screaming at a group of men outside Maxine’s Gentlemen’s Club in Melbourne (pictured)
Ms Thorpe responded to the criticism saying she can’t ‘go out without being harassed by racists’ (she is pictured trying to disrupt a speech by activist Posie Parker in Canberra)
Mr Albanese suggested Ms Thorpe’s behaviour had ‘obvious issues that need to be dealt with in terms of her health issues.’
‘These are not the actions of anyone who should be participating, in society in a normal way, let alone a Senator,’ he said.
‘And Lidia needs to be very conscious of the way in which this behaviour has been seen. I hope that she gets some form of support.’
While Ms Thorpe claimed she was provoked by the men, Daily Mail Australia exclusively revealed that the rogue senator had been walking up to white patrons of the strip club accusing them of stealing her land earlier in the night.
The strip club meltdown is just the latest in a string of controversial incidents the senator has been involved in recent months, which included her temporarily halting the Mardi Gras parade in a protest against police.
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