2day FM DJ's express their regret over the death of nurse they prank called during first interviews
The 2Day FM DJ’s who made the prank call to the hospital caring for the Duchess of Cambridge have spoken about the regret over the suicide of the nurse who took the phone call.
Mel Greig and Michael Christian has given their first interviews since the death of Jacintha Saldanha on Friday, for which they were blamed by social media users.
Speaking to Australian programme A Current Affair, they discussed where the idea for the call, in which they pretended to be the Queen and the Duke of York, came from and how they felt upon learning of the death.
In tears, Greig described the call informing her of Saldanha’s death as "the worst phone call I’ve ever had in my life."
She later added: "There’s not a minute that goes by where we don’t think about her family and what they must be going through and the thought we may have played a part in that is gutwrenching."
The pair have given a number of interviews that will run in Australia this morning, expressions of guilt.
Christian discussed the prank call itself, which led to the pair discussing private information about the Duchess, who had been admitted to the King Edward VII Hospital in Central London due to severe morning sickness, he said: “We just had the idea for just a simple harmless phone call. That we thought about making a call it was going to go for 30 seconds we were going to be hung up on, and that was it. As innocent as that.”
The news broke of Saldanha’s death on Friday afternoon, leading to an eruption of anger through Twitter vented at the radio station and the two presenters, with Twitter users calling on the pair to be fired.
The station has since cancelled all advertising and put a ban on prank calls being made, while the two presenters have also been placed on leave.
A statement released by Rhys Holleran, the CEO OF 2Day FM’s parent company Southern Cross Austereo, defended the DJ’s, saying: "Southern Cross Austereo (SCA) and 2Day FM are deeply saddened by the tragic news of the death of nurse Jacintha Saldanha from King Edward VII’s Hospital and we extend our deepest sympathies to her family and all that have been affected by this situation around the world."
"I spoke to both presenters early this morning and it's fair to say they're completely shattered.
"Prank calls as a craft in radio have been going for decades and decades, they are not just part of one radio station, or one network or one country. They’re done worldwide.”
The Australian Communications and Media Authority, the body regulating radio broadcasting in the country, has said it had received a flood of complaints but is yet to launch a formal investigation.