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‘I WANTED TO QUIT’
TV star’s cyber bullying torment
Reality TV star Julian “Julz” Tocker has opened up about online abuse — including homophobic slurs and other cruel comments about his image — which saw him consider quitting television.
The dancer, actor and model returned to New Zealand last year from a highly successful 15-year stint in America with an expectation New Zealanders would be as accepting as overseas fans of his flamboyant confidence.
Instead, after he hit our screens for his debut in a leading role, the star of Dirty Dancing USA copped abuse online for everything from his hair, clothes and assumed sexuality.
“Last season I had a few keyboard haters on things that were just not necessary,” Tocker said.
“One night it was about my curly hair, which is naturally this curly,
then someone said I looked like I was just out of prison. After 15 years of being away and working on some of the biggest shows in the world, I wasn’t quite expecting that back home.”
Tocker, who is heterosexual, said there were remarks about his sexuality with people assuming he was gay, just because he is a dancer.
“I’ve had that since I was a kid because some people think dance is not the definition of being a man. But what is? I just switched off to it. It shouldn’t matter what your sexuality is, what you are wearing, how your hair is. It’s sad we are living in that culture.”
Despite his confidence, Tocker said the constant remarks took a toll and he questioned his return to reality TV as a dance judge.
It was when he worried about his outfit choice the next week that he knew he had to call out the online abuse.
“I was a little hesitant in coming back for another season but I thought I’m not going to let that pull me down.
“I thought, ‘Hang on a second. Screw you, I am who I am and I’m going to own it’.”
For a society that prides itself on being inclusive and accepting, Tocker said New Zealand had to keep reinforcing to young people that it was okay to be themselves, whether they loved dancing, rugby or science.
“What they learn when they are young carries through and they say those things as adults.
“I think that’s what I struggled with most, that I was still getting these comments as an adult, it was a shock that my image was even a conversation.
“Haven’t we moved on from this?” Tocker — who has returned to New Zealand for the upcoming series of Dancing with the Stars — wanted to share his experience to “call out” haters and send a message to young New Zealanders to take pride in who they are and do what made them happy.
Since his return to New Zealand, he had visited schools to show children what a positive effect dancing had on his life.
“As a male dancer you get teased your whole life and I have a platform now where I can say this is not on, it’s not okay and it shouldn’t happen,” he said. “I was in a school the other day and spoke to a boy who did ballet and kept it a secret, it shouldn’t be like that.”
Tocker said he had grown up with bullying but had the confidence to get through it. “It can make a kid or break a kid . . . We have to take a hard look at ourselves and call out the negative talk.” A pamphlet that references Don Brash has been labelled racist by Justice Minister Andrew Little, who wants the review of hate speech laws to examine whether better avenues of complaint are needed.
The Advertising Standards Authority confirmed it is considering a complaint by Pt Chevalier resident Emma Vere-Jones about the pamphlet which she believes denigrates Ma¯ori. She felt the timing soon after the Christchurch terrorist attacks was deliberate, but had struggled to find where to complain.
The Human Rights Commission’s criteria didn’t seem to fit so she complained to the ASA because the pamphlet seeks donations for a campaign named Rolling Thunder.
“The concern for me is that if there is no one to complain to, does that mean it is okay for people to put that sort of thing in my letterbox. There needs to be some sort of recourse.”
The pamphlet, titled One Treaty One Nation, calls to end state partnership with Ma¯ori, scrap the Waitangi Tribunal, Ma¯ori electorates and wards and says Ma¯ ori have benefited from colonisation lifting them out of “a violent stone age existence”.
Little, who is overseeing the review of hate speech, believes the pamphlet is racist.
“It peddles myths about preEuropean Ma¯ori society that historical scholarship does not bear out.”
He said the Human Rights Commission would be interested in it.
The HRC said it could accept complaints about publications or written matters that are threatening, abusive or insulting but had no power to make decisions about whether they broke the law.
The pamphlet promotes a book, One Treaty, One Nation co-authored by Brash, a former National Party leader who launched the Hobson’s Pledge Trust campaign calling for an end to race-based laws.
Brash said, “I had no involvement in the recent distribution but the idea that the book is relevant to Christchurch is patent nonsense.”