Magda Szubanski speaks out after Twitter fury: “Should I stop having an opinion?”
TV star Magda Szubanski has spoken out after being scolded publicly online for her comments about the Prime Minister's wife, Jenny Morrison.
Szubanski shared a photo on social media of Mrs Morrison standing near her husband, Scott Morrison, while he signed a condolence book for Prince Philip following the royal's death.
The TV star was accused of suggesting Mrs Morrison was subservient to her husband in the tweets.
Image: Screengrab from A Current Affair
However, Szubanski informed A Current Affair host Tracy Grimshaw that her comments were not a "tirade".
She also went on to say that her main point in her tweets was that the photos were bad PR.
"Why would you put something that looks like The Handmaid's Tale out as a photo op?" Szubanski said.
"Look, I don't want to hurt her (Mrs Morrison), of course I don't. I do think that if she's going to be in public life, we need to know more about her.
"If she's going to have some sort of influence in public life I want to know, what are her values? What kind of a woman is she?"
Szubanski went on to say it was only fair Australians know more about Mr Morrison’s wife, considering how often she is brought up by the Prime Minister.
She also said the “wacko” picture had not just been questioned by her.
"I think doing a media pile-on about someone's appearance is not something that I would condone," Szubanski said.
"When I first looked at it did not realise that it was Jenny Morrison because it looks very different from her, she's normally got her hair done, makeup, the whole sort of thing.
"I genuinely thought it was a meme, so I was a bit staggered that I got drawn into this over such a nothing observation that thousands of people had already made."
In one of her retweets of the picture she said "I genuinely thought this was a photoshopped Handmaid's Tale meme. But no. It's 21st century Aussie life".
Szubanski took to Twitter not long after to say: "Let me be clear… I'm not actually making a disparaging comment about Jenny. I just genuinely thought it was a meme!"
However, they’re not the only tweets the star has copped a lashing for.
In another photo of the Morrison family with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Szubanski commented on Twitter, "what's this little hand signal thingy?"
Image: Screengrab from A Current Affair
She was referring to the way Mrs Morrison's hand was resting.
The comedian admitted that the tweet was probably "silly", but said the reaction was likely a distraction.
"The fact that it turned into this big issue is no doubt in my mind partly to distract from the fact that Christine Holgate was making her testimony, so it was a little bit of 'oh don't look at this because there's something going on here'," the comedian said.
The Kath and Kim star says she won’t stop airing her opinions on Twitter.
"I'm not there just to make nice comments all the time, there are things that I think need to be addressed," Szubanski said.
"Should I get off Twitter? Should I stop having an opinion? Well that is democracy. Do I like it when people pile on me? No, I don't, but I also go 'well that's what they do'."