2Day FM radio DJ Michael Christian (EPA)
A shameless Aussie DJ at the center of the royal nurse suicide scandal boasted “I’m still at the top of my game” after being handed a top award by his radio bosses.
This week Australia’s Today Network named Michael Christian as one of the network’s best DJs in an internal competition, The Sun reported.
Jacintha Saldanha, 46, was found hanged last December in her hospital lodgings in London, days after she answered a prank call from Christian and his colleague Mel Greig from Australian radio station 2Day FM.
Christian was a joint winner and as a prize will be flown to Los Angeles for a tour of a top radio station.
Quoted on the company Web site, he said despite what “happened in the past few months I’m still at the top of my game.”
“If this competition has taught me anything, it’s that there’s a lot of talent in this company,” Christian said. “Plus it’s given all our announcers access to ideas, ways of thinking and people we might normally have day-to-day contact with.
“From the start I felt like I had something to prove to myself. That regardless of all that’s happened in the past few months I’m still at the top of my game. So it felt good to see my name at the top of the final leader board! Congrats to Ellie and Perry as well. Bring on round two!”
As part of the hospital hoax, Greig and Christian had pretended to be Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles, William’s father.
Saldanha put the call through to a colleague who, despite the DJs’ unconvincing accents, disclosed details of the Duchess of Cambridge’s condition during treatment for an extreme form of morning sickness in the early stages of pregnancy.
British newspapers reported that Saldanha, a mother of two, held the DJs responsible for her death in one of three suicide notes she left.
“Ms. Saldanha’s suicide was a devastating tragedy and Ms. Greig’s thoughts have been with the family ever since,” her lawyers said in the statement.
2DayFM canceled the pair’s show, which had been off the air since the incident.
Southern Cross Austereo, parent company of the radio station, has also apologized and promised to donate advertising revenue to a fund for Saldanha’s family with a minimum contribution of $525,000.
With Reuters