Kate Langbroek has gone completely off script on The Project, claiming Australians were “queuing like little brats” to get a Covid jab in an extraordinary tirade that stunned her co-hosts.
Langbroek made the comments while praising Novak Djokovic for sticking to his principles despite his anti-vaccination stance during Tuesday’s episode of the Channel 10 show.
The tennis star was forced to leave Australia days before he was due to play at the Australian Open in January 2022 after entering the country without a vaccination due to strict border restrictions in the wake of the pandemic.
“His self-awareness is so strong that when the whole world was lining up to get vaccinated with an unknown vaccine, he thought: ‘I’m not going to do that,'” said Langbroek.
‘The world hated him, but he stood firm.’
This is not the first time Langbroek has spoken out on this topic. In September 2021, she criticized employers for telling their staff to get vaccinated or risk losing their jobs.
“I am not in favor of mandatory vaccinations at work,” she said during the tense confrontation.
Kate Langbroek (pictured) has hit out at Australians who ‘queued like little brats’ to get a Covid jab during an extraordinary rant about the ‘unknown vaccine’ on The Project
‘I’m not against vaccinations, but I just find it very annoying to prescribe to people what they have to put in their bodies in order to function.’
A month later, Langbroek told Stellar magazine that her strict upbringing as a Jehovah’s Witness had made her critical of mandatory vaccinations.
“I don’t understand why everyone is so combative and happy about it,” she said.
‘I don’t want people to be excluded [a religious practice of exclusion] out of their lives. I saw it growing up, and it is a cruel and effective form of control.’
Langbroek argued that excommunicating people from society who chose not to get vaccinated was similar to the cruel tactics used to control religious dissenters.
“I find it disgusting that they are being excluded from their lives because they have doubts about vaccination,” she said.
“If you have the right to be at work and feel protected, doesn’t someone else have the right to decide what they put in their body?”
Langbroek (right) surprised her fellow panelists on The Project after praising tennis star Novak Djokovic for his ‘steadfast’ stance against the Covid vaccine
In December 2023, Djokovic (pictured) said he was still struggling with his deportation, ahead of his return to Australia for the Australian Open in January this year.
In December 2023, Djokovic said he still suffered from the scars of his deportation, just before his return to Australia for the Australian Open the following month.
“I was basically declared the villain of the world,” he told CBS.
Djokovic said he had often faced hostile crowds during his tennis career, but nothing had prepared him for the deportation.
He was asked whether he had “misjudged” the mood of the Australian public, who were “very positive about vaccination” and did not appreciate the “exceptional” character of the Serbian star.
It wasn’t for me to read [up on] “Everyone,” Djokovic replied.
‘I was allowed to enter the country and of course the situation escalated to the highest levels in the world.’
Djokovic is an outspoken vaccine sceptic and has not been vaccinated against Covid.