Where not to park

It started out innocently enough, Fifi Box came clean with Dave Thornton on the Fox earlier this week about her weekend adventures to the supermarket.

Fifi said: “I parked in a disabled car space.”  “I just pulled in and didn’t think about it.”

“I am going to have to limp back to the car.”   “It was a very convincing limp.”

You can hear the whole piece below:

3AW’s Tom Elliot got onto Fifi’s story and let rip in his drive program:

“She pretended to limp while she returned her shopping trolley so that the people gathered around her car would think that she was disabled,”

“Where does she get off, pretending to be disabled?

“I think Fifi Box and Fox FM should hang their heads in shame.”

The war of words between Fifi and Tom escalated somewhat.

On Fox FM yesterday Fifi confronted Tom Elliott about the situation, and told her side of the story.

‘If you’ve ever listened to me on the radio, you know that I do silly things, I make mistakes, I’m very honest about that. And in that situation I was honestly saying I made a mistake.’

‘I wasn’t imitating a disabled person. I have far more respect for them,.I am not in anyway ever trying to hurt or disrespect anybody. So if I have offended anybody by telling that story, I am so sorry, and that’s a heartfelt apology.’

’The intention I had on Monday was to out myself and apologise for something I did. I wasn’t hiding, and I certainly wasn’t making fun of it.’

Tom fired back On-Air that afternoon  saying: “It was a half baked apology.”

 “To make matters worse, there's the parking in the spot, which I can sort of forgive, that’s a mistake – we have to take Fifi’s word on that."

"There’s the putting on the limp , I think that’s pretty bad, but then there was making a joke of it on Monday morning on Fox Fm.”  "This is the reason I said Fox the station, should hang their head in shame or its head in shame"

 “The station continued to promo this as if it were a funny prank.”

The target audience for 3AW and the FOX are poles apart but when image is everything particularly with talent, that transcends multiple media platforms, sometimes that On Air “real life” piece can go down a path where everyone seemingly jumps on the bandwagon – right or wrong.