Kirin J Callinan has broken his silence on his highly-publicised 2017 ARIA Awards appearance that saw him charged and face court last month for exposing himself on the red carpet.
Appearing on The Project on Wednesday night, the Sydney artist said, "Of course I regret it.
"It was very silly, very silly, spontaneous thing that happened."
Callinan plead guilty but received no conviction, instead receiving a 12 month good behaviour bond.
He added that he didn't realise how much attention the stunt caused until the morning after the ARIAs.
"It's been heartbreaking, actually."
He continued, "A couple of champagnes in, on the red carpet and it was a private media area.
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"I think there is a bigger conversation to be had about truth in media because the way it escalated in some online blogs and other more established outlets, all of a sudden it was 'in front of children', or 'it happened for several moments' or 'multiple times'."
Callinan admitted that the incident has taken its toll in the last few months.
"I had no problem with certain sections of the media getting outraged, it was sections of my own community turning on me.
"Whether it was musicians... from the queer community or from the arts community, that I've been a part of and given a lot to for my whole life, that was the hardest thing."
Callinan also addressed his sacking from the 2018 Laneway Festival line-up, as well as Brisbane artist Miss Blanks, who originally approached organisers about pulling him from the bill and why he defended her when she was criticised by his own fans.
"I'm not gonna lie, I wasn't very happy that another artist had a go at me and went on the radio to do so," he explained.
"But by the same token, she's quite young and she's got an opinion and that's cool. Not everyone has to like me, there's no issue there. I didn't like that then she was getting attacked for having an opinion and even if the opinion was misguided or had some of the facts wrong, that wasn't what was important."
See the full clip below.
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