Aussie music legend Molly Meldrum has issued an apology after interrupting Gold Logie winner Samuel Johnson during his speech at Sunday night’s award show.
Johnson, who has quit acting to focus on his charity work, had just begun his speech dedicating his award to his terminally-ill sister Connie when Meldrum walked across the stage and took the microphone from him, effectively highjacking his speech.
“I profusely apologise if I upset anyone,” the 74-year-old News Corp.
“His speech for his sister Connie was beautiful and his charity work is simply amazing.
“He’s gone through a lot lately. And if people had problems understanding what I was trying to say, well, that’s nothing new to me.”
Johnson won his Logie for playing Meldrum in the hit series Molly and the pair seemed to have quite the rapport throughout the night.
Even when Meldrum interrupted him, Johnson was seen laughing along with the crowd.
“Ah, can I just tell you something that you never do as an actor, or as a TV presenter?” Meldrum said, pushing him out of the way.
“You never say ‘um’, ‘er’, ‘um, ‘er’ – alright keep going!
“Do yourself a f***ing favour!”
Afterwards, he came back up to the microphone to present Johnson will a golden hat, similar to his own.
“I know it was very hard to play an old drama queen like myself,” he said. “So on behalf of the drama queen of Australia, I’d like to crown you also with my gold hat.”
Johnson seemed to take it all in his stride, but later told reporters he wasn’t able to deliver the touching tribute to his sister he’d hoped to.
“I had it all planned,” he said.
“It’s about Connie for me so I had a bunch of stuff planned. I might post my speech on Facebook.”