The highly offensive guest that Sky News Australia put to air on Sunday was invited into the channel’s Perth studio where he declared he had “enough balls to fight Islam” while a studio staffer rearranged the bacon on his shirt before the interview.
The UK-based social media influencer Ryan Williams has posted a video of his friendly interaction with a Sky News staffer that throws more light on how much the News Corp-owned platform knew about their guest’s intentions before the live interview.
Sky has apologised for the racist and Islamophobic rant and is reviewing the program Freya Fires Up, hosted by Freya Leach, but Leach has not been suspended.
She appeared on Sky’s The Late Debate program on Monday night, where she apologised again.
Leach introduced Williams as a “social media sensation” and he went on to call Muslims terrorists and explain he “wore” bacon to protect himself from alleged threats of beheading. The rest of what he said is too offensive to repeat.
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Sky News said on Monday the program “took immediate action during the live broadcast to cut off the guest” but newly posted video shows Williams making it clear that the topic of conversation was anti-Islam.
The young Korean Scottish national says in the video he is usually “a half-naked Korean guy screaming at the top of his lungs like I’m hung like a chipmunk, but I’ve got enough balls to fight Islam”. The staffer says “strangely not the weirdest thing I’ve done in this job” as he drapes the bacon on the guest’s shirt.
Sky has tried to deflect criticism by saying Williams was “specifically asked for his reaction to the Charlie Kirk assassination” but Williams’ main online persona is wearing bacon on his bare chest while spreading Islamophobic rhetoric.
“The employee in the video is a casual technical guest liaison who meets and mics up studio guests,” a Sky spokesperson told Guardian Australia on Tuesday. “He was not aware of the guest’s background and not involved in booking the guest or any editorial processes.
“The actions and remarks of the guest were wholly inappropriate and unacceptable and have no place on our network. The guest responsible should never have appeared.”
The news channel has admitted a failure of editorial process allowed Williams to appear and is urgently reviewing the program and the guest vetting procedures.
“Sky News Australia apologises unreservedly for the deeply offensive comments made by a guest during a live broadcast on Sunday evening,” Sky said.
“These remarks were wholly inappropriate and unacceptable and have no place on our network. The guest responsible should never have appeared.
“We recognise the harm such rhetoric can cause and take full responsibility for this failure in our editorial processes.”
Leach, a young conservative woman who appeared as a guest on the ABC’s Q+A program during the Indigenous voice to parliament referendum in 2023, is the director of youth policy at the Menzies Research Centre and is a former Liberal candidate for the seat of Balmain.
Leach has been approached for comment.
