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Carrie Bickmore’s tears over charity backlash

Jun 14, 2017

Carrie Bickmore pic credit: Instagram

Carrie Bickmore has pleaded ignorance over launching her charity on the same day as AFL great Neale Daniher’s annual Big Freeze at the MCG.

“Honestly, it was completely unintentional,” she said on last night’s The Project.

“We were due to launch our beanies a couple of weeks ago but they didn’t arrive in time so we had to push it back a few weeks and in the business of making it all happen, and keeping our supporters happy, we didn’t take note of the fact the new date then clashed with Neale’s Freeze at the G.

“We just wanted to finally get the beanies out to everyone and of course now I wish I had waited another few days.”

On Monday night, Bickmore and her co-hosts spent two segments of The Project promoting a new range of beanies for Bickmore’s own charity, Beanies 4 Brain Cancer.

It directly clashed with rival network Channel 7’s promotion of The Big Freeze 3 which promotes sales of blue beanies in support of research into motor neurone disease.

Before the program was over, angry viewers took to social media to criticise Bickmore’s insensitive timing.

Bickmore fought back tears on last night’s The Project as she told viewers she had been “absolutely gutted” over the backlash she’s received over the incident.

However, before she explained how the double-up happened, Bickmore told viewers about the enormous demand for the beanies — adult sizes had sold out with a few children’s left and more on order.

Bickmore is said to be devastated about the online fury and said she spoke to Neale Daniher about the clash.

“I spoke to Neale today, they had an incredibly successful campaign yesterday which is great news,” she said.

“We both pour our heart and souls into these campaigns and I have been absolutely gutted that anyone would think I would try and derail someone else’s lifesaving work.

“I just wouldn’t. It doesn’t benefit us in any way to do that. I am just bummed that this is what is being talked about.”

She encouraged viewers to celebrate the generosity of the country as The Big Freeze beanies had also sold out and she praised Daniher as a “great support personally and publicly”.

“Australia is an incredibly generous country with the most wonderful souls who want to see an end to all forms of brain disease as much as we do,” Bickmore said.

“We are all in this together. Thank you everyone for your generosity. Thanks for all your support to both foundations.”

In 2010, The Project host lost her husband Greg to brain cancer just five years after they were married.

She introduced her Beanies 4 Brain Cancer appeal during her Logies acceptance speech in 2015.

Yesterday, News Corp columnist Jamila Rizvi wrote in support of Bickmore and said the television host didn’t deserve the backlash.

“To suggest that some sort of publicity-grabbing sneakiness was at play is laughable,” Rizvi wrote.

“Sadly, the online reaction is entirely reflective of our society’s current obsession with framing every situation as an artificial competition…instead of fighting, people should be focused on how to grow donations as a whole. The question shouldn’t be who copied whose campaign or who stole whose day or which disease is more worthy of research dollars. The question should be: how do we encourage more Australians to give to charity in the first place? And how do we encourage those who already give but are in a position to give more, to do so?”