Final credits yet to roll on Corby show
dwayne.grant@nwes.com.au TWO women named Schapelle Corby have arrived home from an unexpectedly long overseas holiday.
One is a “sweetheart”, a “beautiful girl”, “gorgeous” and “clever”. She’s a “national icon” and, in the opinion of at least one of her new Instagram friends, “an Aussie legend”.
Then there’s the other Schapelle Corby, the one who is nothing but an “annoying cow”, a “scumbag” and a “hungry desperate leech”.
Most importantly, she’s also a “pathetic drug trafficker”, hence why it took her almost 13 years to finally catch that return flight from Bali.
They aren’t our words, of course, but rather a few of the contrasting character references posted online in the wake of Corby touching down in Brisbane and sparking a game of media cat and mouse that would have been bizarre if it wasn’t so damn predictable.
As has been the case since 2004 when word first filtered out of Denpasar Airport that an attractive beauty therapist from Tugun had been sprung with enough dope to make Snoop Dogg’s eyes water, Corby and her eclectic clan delivered another day of countless ‘what the’ moments.
A last-minute and precisionchange of airlines to sidestep the media – what the?
A convoy of black vans being tracked by choppers in Brisbane’s pre-dawn dark – what the?
A Schapelle “lookalike” hiding beneath a hoodie at her sister’s Gold Coast home – what the?
Halloween-mask-wearing men toying with media at her mother’s house – WHAT THE?
Then there was the ‘ What the’ heard all the way from NSW’s Mid North Coast when the family of missing toddler William Tyrrell learned Corby had used a handbag that prominently displayed his photo to shield her face in Bali.
“While the Where’s William Campaign appreciates that Schapelle Corby has shown concern … in using her release as a convicted offender from Bali as a media opportunity to increase awareness that William is still missing, we are not happy,” loved ones posted on Facebook.
“William’s family ... have absolutely no association with Schapelle Corby, her supporters or her family.”
Those who love Corby leapt to her defence. Those who don’t attacked her for being insensitive.
Seemingly all abused the media for not focusing on more important issues, failing to see the irony that they were spending their Sundays posting comment after comment on Schapelle stories and none on articles about the Syrian crisis.
That public fascination with Corby – and her own clan’s embrace of it – was never more evident than when the 39-year-old launched a public Instagram account to mark her return.
Her first post was a photo of her puppies – “Going to miss these two,” it read. Several videos showed the world what she was seeing from inside her vehicle as she made her final trips through the Bali streets. Two images teasingly showed glimpses of her face – but not enough to spoil any future media exclusives.
The most interesting thing though? In less than 24 hours more than 130,000 people had signed up to see every other little thing Australia’s most famous convicted drug smuggler might want to share.
Which sure is a hell of a lot of people who don’t want to see or read another thing about Corby again.