Ben Cousins documentary: Caroline Wilson slams Basil Zempilas question

Seven’s Coming Clean documentary showed Cousins’ first face-to-face interview for more than 10 years — but it has left a number of high profile commentators with a sour taste in their mouths with suggestions of exploitation.

Wilson added her voice to the outcry on Monday night when she took a swipe at Zempilas for pushing Cousins to explain how a nude photo of himself in a Perth spray tanning business ended up spreading across the internet.

Cousins openly said he was “just trying to get a root” when his nude photo was posted to the Facebook page of Georgia Spray Tanning in 2019 in a regrettable moment for the Brownlow Medalist.

The nude photo incident was further addressed in unreleased footage posted by The West Australian.

Wilson said Zempilas appeared desperate to force Cousins to hit rock bottom.

“It was so tasteless,” Wilson said on Monday’s Footy Classified.

“Every woman watching that, and certainly most clear-minded young men and older men would have been horrified.

“Basil, the blokey nudge, the dreadful follow-up question, the assumption that this was in any way an acceptable line to pursue or a conversation to be held on prime time television.

“Why on earth did the editors leave it in? Basil, why did you let them? Were you all so desperate for a ‘gotcha’ moment in the story of a fallen hero who is desperately seeking relevance but (is) completely lacking clarity and an inability to explain how or why all this happened?”

Wilson also took aim at Seven’s production team for the vulgar way it was presented.

“It’s been a tough few weeks for everyone, but I was as depressed as I’ve felt,” she said.

“It was just so sad and so awful. Some of the things, the writing to the soapie star, getting him to play tennis with Nat Fyfe, is a bit of a gimmick and the meeting with John Worsfold, although not really showing what happened.

“I felt it was strangely edited. I know it was a tough job for Basil, but that (scene) there was just sickening. It was just awful to see how much he’s struggling.”

In the unreleased footage, Cousins reportedly called himself a “f***wit” for allowing the viral nude photo to get out.

“I thought ‘what a f***wit’,” he said.

“If I saw that, if it wasn’t me, I’d say ‘Is somebody going to bash this bloke? If he’s not going to get bashed, can we get organised how we can get this bloke clipped … badly’.”

Cousins was banned by the AFL for 12 months for bringing the game into disrepute soon after he was dumped by the Eagles. He went on to play 32 games in two years at Richmond before retiring at the age of 32 at the end of the 2010 season.

Cousins’ life spun out of control in retirement, his issues with drug dependency resulting in him spending time in jail.

Originally published as Ben Cousins documentary: Caroline Wilson slams Basil Zempilas question