Veteran newsreader Sandra Sully launches scathing tirade against ‘ridiculous’ comments on her appearance

Veteran Channel Ten news presenter Sandra Sully launched a scathing tirade on Sunday against the ‘ridiculous’ focus on her physical appearance.

The journalist, 58, told the ABC that women were judged differently than men in the media and that people had focused on her appearance for years.

‘I became increasingly aware of the double standards by which women were judged. What you wear, how you present yourself, what your hair looked like, your makeup,” she said.

‘We were judged much more severely than men and so that was an extra kind of obstacle that had to be overcome.’

Sully said she always made sexist comments when she heard them, and revealed she once put a male colleague in his place after an inappropriate comment about her breasts.

“He said to me, ‘That was a bit sharp, wasn’t it?’ And I said, ‘You shouldn’t have said it. What does it have to do with it? Stop this, it’s not how you’re behaving.’

She added that while the media landscape was a lot better now than it was a few decades ago, there was still a long way to go.

‘Women are eligible for every role and have every right to take advantage of those opportunities. But there’s still a boys’ club and I think that’s more unconscious than conscious.”

The 58-year-old journalist told the ABC that women were judged differently to men in the media and that people had focused on her appearance for years.

Sandra has been part of the Ten News team since 1990 and was the first Australian journalist to cover the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001.

Last week, Sully left jaws dropping across the country when she was unmasked as Fawn on Monday’s episode of The Masked Singer Australia.

And the Channel Ten newsreader revealed on Tuesday’s episode of The Project that she took on the decidedly unserious role because she needed a break from the ‘zombie’ sludge of the nightly news.

‘I became increasingly aware of the double standards by which women were judged. What you wear, how you presented yourself, what your hair looked like, your makeup,” Sandra said

“I live in a serious world… And I honestly think it dawns on me that sometimes the straitjacket in life either you make or it’s made for you,” she said.

Sandra says she was in a “routine zombie pattern” and appeared on a “box in some people’s houses” and needed a change.

“All credit to my husband, he kept saying to me, what have you got to lose? Why not? The worst that can happen is that you bomb the performance, but you can laugh at yourself, right?’

After removing her mask, 58-year-old judges Melanie Brown, Abbie Chatfield, Dave Hughes and Chrissie Swan were completely stunned, with none of them able to guess her identity.

Last week, Sully left jaws dropping across the country when she was unmasked as Fawn on Monday’s episode of The Masked Singer Australia