Paparrazi responds after Tracy Grimshaw’s savaging make-up free selfie

Last week, A Current Affair host Tracy Grimshaw made headlines when she posted a make-up free selfie on her Instagram page.

Grimshaw, 58, claimed the photograph was in response to paparazzi who were attempting to take photographs of her without make-up and sell them to gossip websites and magazines.

“Paps are in my street again so here’s a free shot of what they’re after: without make up or hair done, looking unkempt and flushed from working, preferably with #restingbitchface, work clothes covered in furkid hair, and maybe some horse snot thrown in,” she wrote.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BlPDBjogwlI/?taken-by=tracygrimshaw007

“Now the mags and websites don’t have to pay to have me stalked by strange men to get this pic. I’ll buy a selfie stick so next time I can give you full length, because they like those. Especially from behind. Leave it with me.”

Read more: Tracy Grimshaw savages paparazzi with honest make-up free selfie

The post was praised by many on the internet, with many congratulating the former 20 to One star for being so honest and for calling out the paparazzi. In a new development, the photographer in question, Stephen Cook, has delivered a response of his own.

In a message that has now been deleted by Grimshaw, the former assistant editor of New Zealand’s Herald on Sunday called out the A Current Affair host, noting that the very show she works on does exactly what she was speaking out against.

“Tracy, there is a rich irony here that for whatever reason seems lost on you,” the Courier Mail reports Cook saying. “With blinding righteous indignation, you condemn the paparazzi while ignoring the fact that in the over-exaggerated, sensationalised world of tabloid current affairs your show adopts the very same practices as they do.”

He said that A Current Affair chases and hounds people to the ends of the earth in the name of serious journalism, but claimed the show was tabloid television designed for ratings and advertising revenue.

“What you have to understand Tracy is that with the million-dollar pay cheque, the hire cars and all the other perks and privileges there is inevitably going to be some public interest in you as a person, rather than the broadcaster/journalist/woman who reads the autocue,” Cook continued. “Magazines and newspapers are the ones that serve the interest and the paparazzi are the people who serve them by providing the content which feeds the appetite.

“To dumb this whole argument down to a commentary about your front and rear end facile and ignores what is a much bigger picture here.”

Read more: Tracy Grimshaw: Our shock and revulsion over Ben McCormack

Cook added that A Current Affair won a journalism award thanks to footage they included from the paparazzi and said the show shouldn’t accept content from them if they also vilify the paparazzi.

Grimshaw is yet to respond to the message, although given she removed it, it is unlikely she will.

What do you think? Do the paparazzi have the right to take pictures of famous people? Does this photographer have a point, or was he out of line?