Picture this: You’ve scored tickets to see the queen of millennial relationship advice herself, Dolly Alderton. You’re ready to soak up all the wisdom from the woman who’s literally taught us Everything [We] Know About Love. But instead of getting the Dolly content you signed up for, you got a male podcaster — Hugh van Cuylenburg — hogging the spotlight.
This was apparently the reality for hundreds of girlies that went to ‘An Evening with Dolly Alderton’ at the Arts Centre’s Hamer Hall in Melbourne on Thursday November 14.
Dolly is touring in Australia to discuss her career and latest book, Good Material. She’s had many hosts throughout the tour accompanying her on stage, including feminist author Hannah Ferguson and Shameless Podcast hosts Zara McDonald and Michelle Andrews. Hugh was the only male host throughout her Aussie tour and fans were not impressed.
Hugh who is known for his work on healthy masculinity, vulnerability and motivational speaking through The Resilience Project, apparently “hijacked” the conversation with Dolly.
One attendee, Jasmine Ecott, took to TikTok to share her frustration: “He talked about himself pretty much the whole time, we got maybe a couple of questions from Dolly… He decided to tell us two ghost stories, for some reason told us about his all-male group chat called ‘Dads And Beers And Stuff‘.”
The cringe factor reached new heights when audience members apparently started yelling “let her speak” and “stop asking questions about men”.
Another TikToker, Steph, described the night as “absolutely shocking and disappointing”. Steph clarified that she wasn’t blaming Dolly: “Dolly was literally perfection, but the host steamrolled her and literally talked about himself the entire night.”
BookTokker Madeline also chimed in and said, “I’m not sure Hugh had prepared properly for the interview. I’m not sure [if] he was familiar with the topics that a group of predominantly women were interested in or the reason why we were connecting with Dolly’s material.”
To add insult to injury, Hugh apparently took the opportunity to plug his own book and podcast.
The vibes between this event and Dolly’s other tour stops seem stark. There is a video making the rounds from one of her Sydney shows, where host Yumi Stynes encouraged everyone in the room to scream as a collective after finding out Donald Trump had won the election. Diva behaviour only!
It’s clear that fans felt that having a man dominate the conversation at an event celebrating a female author who writes about the female experience was seriously out of place.
“I feel like in the political climate as well, it was so in such bad taste to just centre this whole discussion around men, and that is why a man should not have hosted that,” said Jasmine.
Neither Dolly or Hugh have addressed the situation publicly yet, however The New Daily reported that Hugh has contacted at least one audience member personally to apologise for his performance.
Lead image: MadelineReadsBooks/Jasmine Ecott/ Stephos11 via TikTok
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