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Kiwi comedian under fire over fake erotic cricket tale

Author
Cherie Howie, NZ Herald,
Publish Date
Sun, 14 Jul 2019, 8:48AM
Melanie Bracewell has apologised for the fake account. (File photo / Supplied)
Melanie Bracewell has apologised for the fake account. (File photo / Supplied)

Kiwi comedian under fire over fake erotic cricket tale

Author
Cherie Howie, NZ Herald,
Publish Date
Sun, 14 Jul 2019, 8:48AM

A Kiwi comedian is in hot water with cricket fans around the world after she tweeted a screenshot of a vulgar, sexually explicit message she claimed had been sent to her by someone from the Reddit cricket community.

But Melanie Bracewell later admitted the saucy account was fake — she had written it herself, as a joke and to encourage others to send their own erotic cricket stories to the Alternative Commentary Collective.

The 2018 Billy T Award winner was in the commentary box with the collective when she made the tweet. She admitted the account was fake when a Reddit moderator contacted her asking for details of the sender.

The online response to the comedienne's admission has been scathing.

"Lying about sexual harassment isn't a joke", wrote one.

Another wrote: "When people make up stories like this, it becomes ammo for mysoginists and apologizes [sic] in future".

Bracewell posted an apology to Reddit, but users challenged her to do the same on Twitter — where she has since deleted her account.

"She should post this apology on Twitter as well where it was originally posted, to that same audience. Not only did it defame this subreddit and every member, but this false story was used by another Twitter user to make a racist and misandrist [sic] point about men from India," a Reddit user wrote.

Bracewell couldn't be reached today.

In the original post she wrote, "Oh my God I commented on the cricket subreddit and got this private message my lord (nsfw)???????".

The fake message then goes into detail about a fantasy involving sex in a bar toilet as the Black Caps triumph in their semi-final against India.

In her apology to the Reddit community, Bracewell wrote that she "seriously did not expect this to blow up the way it did".

"I'm a comedian and I was commentating on the ACC (Alternative Commentary Collective) at the time. We made jokes about some weird texts we got on the text line of cricket horndogs.

"Thought it would be funny to post something to prompt some more erotic fanfiction on the show (very on theme for the commentary)."

After it ended up being "far more intense and hilarious" than she expected she decided to put it on social media.

"[I] thought it was funnier to imply it was out of the blue (honestly quite drunk and sleep deprived), hence why I blacked out the name, honestly didnt even think about the culture of the cricket subreddit or bringing the community into disrepute.

"Genuinely was just a laugh. But I'd like to genuinely apologise. I didnt think it through properly and it's not something I'd do again."

According to her LinkedIn, Bracewell has appeared as a panellist on 7 Days, hosts weekend shows on Radio Hauraki (owned by Herald parent company NZME) and is a writer for TV shows on Three and TVNZ.

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