Australia’s beloved ‘Egg Boy’ appeared on The Project last night for an exclusive interview and his first time talking publicly since he egged Queensland senator Fraser Anning.
Melbourne teenager Will Connolly – as he would prefer everyone goes back to calling him – became a global sensation for egging Anning after the former One Nation member shared an atrocious statement blaming Muslim immigration for the Christchurch terror attack which killed 50 people.
Speaking to The Project’s Hamish Macdonald, Connolly admitted that in spite of the positive reaction to his stunt, there is a downside.
“It’s blown up completely out of proportion to the point where it’s kind of embarrassing, because too much of the attention is actually brought away from the real victims suffering. We should be focusing on them.” he said.
The world has been talking about #EggBoy
And now @theprojecttv @hamishNews talk to Will 'Egg Boy' Connolly in an eggclusive (sorry, not sorry?) interview. Watch what he's had to say.
"I understand what I did was not the right thing to do. However, this egg has united people." pic.twitter.com/6mZVCRa67W— 10 daily (@10Daily) March 25, 2019
While egging someone is obviously not a dangerous act of violence by any means, there is still valid discussion that’s been had over uncritically glorifying that kind of retaliation against politicians – no matter how vile they are. And of course, the unwarranted violence that Connolly copped from Anning and various other men has been a more important conversation to have.
But when asked if he thinks it’s acceptable to attack an elected official, Connolly said he didn’t believe there was ever a reason to physically attack someone, and he understands why the stunt would upset people.
“I understand what I did was not the right thing to do,” he told Macdonald.
“However, this egg has united people and, you know, money has been raised, tens of thousands of dollars have been raised for those victims.” he added.
The online crowdfunding campaigns to buy Connolly more eggs or cover his legal fees have raised close to $80,000, and Connolly promised “every cent” will be donated to the victims of the terror attack.
Bravo egg boy glorified in whole world.#eggboy #EggBoyHero pic.twitter.com/uEve2p6t1U
— Rafeeq Ahmad Mir (@rafeeqahmadmir) March 19, 2019
When speaking of the stunt itself, Connolly claims he didn’t go to the press event with his mind made up about following through.
“In my mind I wanted to forgive him but then he started saying some more things…which empowered me to egg him,” he said.
As Will Connolly rightly said, that kind of physical stunt is not something he thinks should be replicated, and the hype has become perhaps “embarrassingly” big, but it has also united people in their support of fighting hate speech – and that’s something we need to figure out how to galvanise without the entertainment of egg stunts.