THE KENNEDY SAGA

It may surprise some of you but I am not thick-skinned. Do not have the skin of a rhino. It was not pleasant to be grilled by Ray Martin after I got off air last night about the death of Graham Kennedy and the fact that I revealed on 3AW earlier in the week that Kennedy was gay. That his much-publicised engagement to lesbian Lana Cantrell was a joke.

In the Herald Sun today the Page Two headline said: Hinch shamed by certificate. It was a reference to a medical certificate that claimed, contrary to what I said on air yesterday, that Kennedy was not HIV positive. Did not have AIDS. Martin made much of that on ACA last night. The Herald Sun quotes me with a rebuttal from one of the last people to see Kennedy alive, Noelene Brown.

It quotes me as saying: “You’re not going to like this, you’re not going to like this, but I believe that Graham Kennedy died from AIDS.”

And the newspaper quotes Kennedy friend, actress and comedian Noelene Brown who was one of the last people to see him alive: “Hinch waited for Graham to die before he defamed him, and he didn’t even have the courtesy to wait for his body to go cold”.

And, I understand on the Mitchell programme today I took a kicking from Noelene Brown’s husband, and Kennedy friend, Tony Sattler.

He claimed – and it is a lie – that I knew ten minutes before I went on air yesterday about the medical report. And another canard – that my producers knew. Not true. Sattler DID talk to 3AW Programme Director Clark Forbes. He apparently delivered that medical report to A Current Affair and the Herald Sun but did not give it to 3AW.

And speaking of the report. It makes interesting but weird reading. It names Graham Kennedy and says – according to the Herald Sun today that data was requested on 18/6/2005. That’s next month! The report does say that a blood test was done on May 18.

Why would you do a blood test for AIDS on a 71-year-old man?

I know the theory that there had been a needle stick injury at the Kennilworth Nursing Home. You would test the apparently exposed nurse and you would know where the needle was found. Do you give blood tests, including tests for AIDS to every one of the more than sixty people living there?

I believe people are angry with me because of something they did not want confirmed. That Kennedy was “a confirmed bachelor”. That Kennedy was gay.

As I said yesterday, even his friend Philip Adams acknowledged in The Australian yesterday that Kennedy was tortured by his sexuality. All the obits talked about a complex lonely recluse. Almost friendless (by choice) in the end.

I make no judgment on him. Just telling you what happened. And maybe why.

Friday, May 27, 2005

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2005