That wasn’t Kylie Minogue performing at the AFL grand final last Saturday – and the 100,000 fans at the famous ground didn’t have a clue who was brought in as a last-minute stand-in after Australia’s princess of pop had an accident as she was leaving her hotel for the ground.
In a world-first, The Bug can reveal that the brave, plucky, replacement picked from the crowd with only minutes to spare was much-loved ABC News Breakfast sports presenter Catherine Murphy.
Not that the director of pre-game entertainment knew that when he approached Murphy as she settled into her seat to watch the match from bay 13.
We’ll let her explain what happened next, in this exclusive chat with The Bug.
“I had just bought myself a few beers and a pie and hotdog to enjoy the first quarter when this bloke came up to me and asked: ‘How tall are you?’ and he replied ‘Prefect’ after I told him I was 4ft 9inches.
“He then asked me if I was afraid of heights and I replied ‘At 4ft 9inches, what do you think?'”
Catherine Murphy told us that at this stage, the entertainment director came clean and told her that only 90 minutes earlier, Ms Minogue had tripped on the kerb at her hotel and shouted ‘I can be so unlucky’ as she crashed to the roadway, spraining an ankle and suffering much bruising.
Catherine again: “It was at this stage that he asked me if I had a bubbly, extrovert personality and loved dancing around and entertaining people. I replied: ‘That I am, to be sure, to be sure!’.
“But it then twigged on me where this conversation was going. ‘I can’t pretend to be Kylie. I can belt out a great karaoke session and I know all her songs back to front but I don’t sound like her!’
“It’s then that he told me all the songs were going to be lip-synched anyway and that it would have cost the AFL $10 million if we’d asked her to sing live.
“He then said: ‘I think you’ll go great but I must warn you there’s a time when she turns her back to the camera and wiggles her arse in a sensual and highly sexual way and I simply told him: ‘You clearly haven’t seen me in action at various Melbourne nightclubs most nights, have you?”
“I also pointed out that my tits were quite a bit larger that Kylie’s but he said mine would be strapped down so that wouldn’t be a problem.”
Catherine Murphy told us her only regret in accepting the gig was that she had not followed through by asking what the man had meant by asking if she was afraid of heights.
“I almost shit myself up there as that cage hurtled around,” she told us.
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