"I'm glad you're resigning": Kochie's run-in with a heckler
David Koch has shared the details of a nasty altercation he had with a stranger after announcing his departure from Sunrise.
Kochie announced on Monday that he would be leaving the Channel Seven breakfast show after 20 years in the hosting chair.
The response to his shock resignation has been mostly positive and supportive, as famous friends and loyal viewers have flooded online spaces with well wishes for the veteran TV presenter.
However, Kochie shared that after taping had finished for Monday morning's show, he was approached by a heckler on the street while walking with his wife, Libby.
“In all of that lovely euphoria, this is just life, I’m walking to lunch with Lib and walked by a bloke and he goes, ‘I’m glad you’re resigning, you are just a paid mouthpiece for Big Pharma’,” Koch said.
“An anti-vaxxer. He started yelling at me across the road. Lib’s going ‘What the hell?’.”
Koch’s co-host Natalie Barr said, “We take the good with the bad, and we know that.”
Kochie has thanked all the well-wishers who responded to the news he is leaving Sunrise, before revealing one random heckler gave him a send-off to forget! @kochie_online #kochie #sunriseon7 pic.twitter.com/uhUhxONeNN
— Sunrise (@sunriseon7) May 29, 2023
Speaking to news.com.au, Koch said that after decades in the game, he was okay with not pleasing everybody.
“Yes, we all have faults. I’ve stuffed up and people love me or hate me, but what they see is what they get, and I think they respect that even if they disagree with your views,” he said.
“It’s a really intimate relationship with the viewers.”
Despite the heckler, Kochie went on to say he had received a lot of kind messages, with one of the nicest tributes coming form his breakfast TV show rival Karl Stefanovic.
“A wonderful, classy, respectful [message] from Karl Stefanovic was so nice, really adored that one,” he said on-air.
“But so many great messages.”
Image credits: Sunrise