TAR OZ S4 Update: Sid has been arrested for assaulting Ash

Hello guys. I am sure many of you've all heard the big news that Sidney Pierucci - the Sid from the duo Sid & Ash has been arrested and charged with assault last week. So, allow me to quote from the news article, "The Amazing Race contestant Sidney Pierucci has been charged with assault and destroying property after a domestic incident at Bellevue Hill in Sydney. The 27-year-old influencer was charged after an alleged domestic altercation which occurred about 3am on Monday 14 October when police spoke to a young woman. “A man was arrested nearby and taken to Waverley Police Station and charged with assault and destroy/damage property,” police said." Woah. In my last post, I talked about karma coming back to haunt Sid later, I honestly thought payback would come in the next one or two episodes, I didn't expect karma to be this fast. Interestingly enough the assault, arrest and the ADVO (Apprehended Domestic Violence Order) all happened back on the 14 October - that was a good 18 days ago. So why did it take 18 days for this story to surface in the Australian media then? Sid was granted bail and will appear in a Sydney court on the 6th November, after episodes 3 and 4 would have aired. Good grief - this makes the Korean dumpling theft pale in comparison! So today, we shall take a step back from the excitement of the race and let's talk about some of the reaction to this breaking news on social media.

Firstly, domestic abuse has to be taken very seriously, especially in a what I'd like to think of as a a civilized country in Australia - in spite of my misgivings about Ash's behaviour in the first two episodes, I am still nonetheless glad that she was able to call the police and get the help she needed from the authorities when she was assaulted by Sid. We don't actually have the details of the actual police report and neither Sid & Ash nor Channel Ten have commented on what happened - but Sid has been charged with assault and destroying/damaging property. Ash had tried very hard to portray herself as this Instagram princess - scrolling through her Instagram feed, I see her posing in a private jet, sunbathing on a yacht and traveling to America. It does seem quite tragic really if Sid had been an abusive partner all this time, probably with a very nasty temper whilst she's desperately trying to sell an image of just how perfect her fairy tale of a glamorous life is. Gee, I wonder if MAC does great concealer for you to hide all the bruises in your photos from your last beating or do you edit them in photo shop? Or perhaps you have a filter that hides all your bruises from your latest beating? I find it very hard to believe that Sid is the perfect gentleman who suddenly flipped out after getting drunk one night and beat her up to the point where she had to call the police - who are you trying to kid. Just ask anyone who has watched the first two episodes of this season and they'll probably assume that this vicious streak in Sid's character didn't come from no where and as for why she is with him in the first place, I can only shrug my shoulders in disbelief. Now she's actually quite pretty - she can do so much better. I know I'm evil and cynical but I am genuinely glad she has finally called the cops that time so at least an independent third party is involved in making sure she isn't getting constantly abused behind closed doors.

I find the details of the ADVO rather strange and perhaps some of my readers in Australia could help explain this to me. It states that Sid must not approach or be in the company of Ashley Ruscoe for at least 12 hours after drinking or taking illicit drugs - what the hell? Seriously? This suggest two things: firstly, that drugs and/or alcohol were involved when Sid attacked Ash on the night of the 14th October. And secondly, the wording of that ADVO seems to imply that Sid is allowed to approach or be in the company of Ash if he is completely sober - now that implies that under Australian law, being drunk or high is a perfectly valid excuse to commit a crime like beating up your partner and destroying/damaging her property. This seems to contradict the proper definition of an ADVO in Australia because it is meant to act like a restraining order -  however, Sid seems to have been given an ADVO-light or a diet-ADVO, surely that can't be right from a legal point of view? If he is to be given an ADVO, then by definition he has to stay the hell away from Ash whether he is drunk or sober, off his head on drugs or completely clean. Look, I am not a legal expert on Australian law when it comes to domestic violence, but surely anyone can read the wording on that ADVO and realize that it makes little sense. TAR fans would also be wondering if and when Channel 10 will finally make a comment about this - after all, after Sid & Ash get eliminated from this race, it is customary for the eliminated teams to give an interview - so, how is that going to work?

This could be down to editing of course, but we didn't see Sid & Ash being nasty to each other during the race - in fact, they did come across as pretty supportive of each other. We have seen other teams get impatient and cross with each other, but each leg of the race does last several hours and we started out with 11 teams in the first episode, that means actually very little time per team. Sid & Ash may have been nasty to each other but the producers have chosen not to put it into the episode as there's so much footage of so many teams, you simply have to leave something out. After all, they were already portrayed as the cheaters after they stole the dumpling from the nuns - how far do you want to go to portray them as unlikable? After all, if you go too far including every unflattering piece of footage, viewers may turn around and question casting them in the first place - why give them this chance when there were so many other Australians who would have loved to have had this opportunity to run TAR? Well given how this story is now spreading around social media, many will be asking that question now. Every reality TV show needs a villain but we draw the line at domestic abuse. Or, they may have been careful enough to keep the fighting behind closed doors, away from the cameras because as we have seen from Ash's Instagram, she is pretty desperate to tell the world how perfect her life is. Sadly, this is both worrying and disturbing as many victims of domestic abuse are actually ashamed of what they are going through and would go to great lengths to hide their abuse from the world, putting on a brave face and bright smile to try to convince you that everything in their life is just great. Your typical episode of TAR Australia with ads is about an hour, without ads about 50 minutes, thus what you see is very selective - it is really only what the producers want you to see.

So just for clarify, please allow me to go through the dates of what happened to help clarify the time line for you here:

20 Aug: TAR Australia starts filming in Seoul, South Korea
12 Sep: TAR Australia wraps in NT, Australia
14 Oct: Sid assaults Ash, she called the police, he is arrested.
28 Oct: Episode 1 air date
29 Oct: Episode 2 air date
28 - 30 Oct: Sid & Ash still posting stuff on Instagram about TAR as if the ADVO never happened
1 Nov: Story of Sid's assault and subsequent arrest circulates on social media
6 Nov: Sid due to appear in court to answer to these charges

So this is what I find very disturbing: even before the first episode was aired, Sid had already assaulted Ash and he is not allowed to go near her now that she has an ADVO against him. Yet even as recently as just three days ago on the 30th October, she was still posting pictures of herself and Sid on Instagram with cheeky comments. Erm hello? No mention about the fact that Sid had recently assaulted her and is awaiting trail. Nothing about domestic abuse or the ADVO. There's something very disturbing, even sickening about the whole situation where she is refusing to comment on the ADVO - after all, she is pretty desperate for attention on social media and participating in a popular reality TV show is exactly what she has been craving for to be on national TV. What is stopping her from being honest about the ADVO then? After all, if it is already in the national news, then there's nothing to hide any more since it is out in the open and trying to pretend that everything is normal just makes the whole situation even weirder. What is going on here - was Ash hoping that the story of the ADVO would get leaked to the media? Is she trying to protect Sid in spite of everything he has done to her? Or is she worried that people on social media won't like her as much if she was honest about the ADVO? When is she going to be honest about what happened? What is also equally weird is that Sid is still posting on Instagram as if he isn't due in court next week to face some very serious charges - there has been a few posts on his Instagram as recent as in the last 24 hours about TAR. Like really? Shouldn't Sid be more busy with his lawyer preparing a plea bargain and a defence rather than trying to milk whatever attention he can still get on Instagram from TAR Oz S4?

Let's talk about the other end of the equation then - clearly Sid & Ash have followers on Instagram that like them, they have many followers, that's a major factor which resulted in them being cast in this season of TAR. Allow me to make this clear: I'm not judging the people who follow Sid & Ash on Instagram, it is a very visual medium where we simply take a look at someone's feed and decide within a few moments if we like their content. This is in huge contrast to what I am doing now, which is using a lot of words to convey my thoughts on a topic. But I do wonder if their followers actually know or care about the ADVO and if finding out about the ADVO would affect the way they feel about Sid & Ash? Allow me to be blunt: there are a lot of photos of Ash being very scantily clad in her Instagram feed, so that kind of content is deliberately posted to attract a certain kind of male attention and quite frankly, these men won't really care about the whole ADVO story, they probably are not even aware that Ash went on TAR as long as she keeps those bikini selfies coming. I'm having a lot more trouble figuring out what kind of people would want to follow someone like Sid on Instagram because I'm left scratching my head as to what his appeal is. I'm curious to find out what impact this ADVO and subsequent court case will have on Sid's career - we will let the Australian courts decide what his punishment should be (but please do send him to jail, please) but would his followers care? Would they desert him as a result or do we live in a world where people really don't care if you are an abusive boyfriend who beats up your girlfriend? I'm no fan of Ash, but no woman deserves to be beaten up in an abusive relationship - so that is why it is illegal and why Sid is a criminal.

I know I have told this story before but I need to share it again, this time in a bit more detail because it does go to show a lot about how these reality TV shows are put together. In TAR China S4, during filming in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, a contestant got so irate with the producers over one of the detours which he complained to be too complicated and unreasonable and so he threw a massive tantrum, threatening to walk out of the filming. A producer tried his best calm this contestant down but the contestant simply punched the producer repeatedly in the face and stormed off. Now the production team could have called the police and have that contestant arrested there and then for assault, but did they? No. Instead, the victim was told to just let the matter go and the whole thing was simply censored, just like that. I wonder if the producers of TAR Australia or USA would censor something like that or if they would actually call the police? Look, TAR is a massive undertaking, the budgets are huge and in the case of TAR China S4, the contestants were all celebrities and many of them were paid a lot of money to take part in the show in a desperate effort to boost the ratings. The production company wasn't going to let the punching incident get in the way of a good programme, so it was simply censored - they weren't prepared to let the celebrity contestant look like a bully who threw a violent tantrum, now that would be rather bad for the ratings. From what I was told, that contestant was a complete asshole and very difficult to deal with in any case; however the producers were determined to make him likable to the audience because it was TAR.

So there's got to be one other couple from the TAR history books that we have to talk about: Jonathan & Victoria from TAR US S6 - they survived 8 legs of the race that season but good grief, it was painful to watch them because Jonathan was just plain nasty to Victoria every step of the way including shoving her in leg 5 after they lost first place. Even when Victoria hurt her hand during the detour in leg 8 in Ethiopia, he didn't seem to care that Victoria's hand was clearly bleeding - other contestants had to yell at him to do something, but he simply didn't care. He was also so rude to a taxi driver in leg 6 in Budapest, Hungary that the taxi driver simply pulled over and kicked them out of the taxi - of course, Jonathan blamed the taxi driver instead of realizing just how nasty he was. Even if he was hated by everyone on social media, he would still somehow convince himself that everyone only hated him because they were jealous of him and it wouldn't bother him at all. They did go on to participate in Fear Factor where there was a massive fight and things got really ugly when Jonathan attacked the host Joe Rogan, this is when you really question some of the casting decisions to put people like that on shows like TAR. Yes you need a villain to spice things up, but do you really want to fill your cast with such nasty characters? Is this really what the audience wants to see? Well the answer is no, there is indeed a limit to what the audience can take in terms of witnessing someone like Jonathan Baker being so abusive to his wife in the name of reality TV. You'll be pleased to know that she eventually divorced him in 2010 - 5 years after they filmed TAR. Why did you wait that long Victoria? But then again, why do so many women remain in extremely abusive relationships?

In the case of Jonathan Baker, he is a business owner and thus he isn't directly affected by the fact that many people hated him after they saw him on the show. I am taking a look out of the window into the street where I live: I see an Italian restaurant, a pub, a hair salon, an estate agent, a dry cleaners, a cafe and a skateboard shop. I certainly know what these businesses do, I have even been to a few of them quite a few times (such as the Italian restaurant when I want a good pizza), but I really have no idea who owns these businesses. I just meet the friendly staff employed to serve me when I step in the front door. So even if there is ultimately someone as nasty as Jonathan Baker actually owning the business, I am none the wiser by that token. Thus as long as his name is not too closely associated with the businesses that he runs, the hatred he has experienced on social media isn't going to affect him financially. However, in Sid's case, he describes himself as a "Sydney based experience-led content creator and stroryteller. I specialise in lifestyle, travel, entertainment and fashion." In short, he is an influencer whose worth depends on his popularity in social media. Thus when approximately half your audience is female, it is probably a very bad idea to beat up your girlfriend and then be slapped with an ADVO. Such an act will probably isolate the majority of your audience who think that violence against women is a very evil act under any circumstances and whilst the number of people out there who would condone such an act must be tiny. To say that this will have a detrimental effect on Sid's business and earnings is an understatement!

I have scoured the internet for more information on this but that's all I could find so far. I do wonder why it took so long for this issue to come to light - given that Sid was arrested on the 14th October but I suppose back then, anyone who knew about the case would be like, "okay, so this fat guy beat up his girlfriend and she called the cops". It wasn't the kind of news story that would make the headlines - not till Australia got excited over the first episode. So if I may postulate, someone who was involved in the arrest (presumably a witness or member of the police) watched the episode and thought, hey I recognize them - he was arrested back on the 14th October, then promptly leaked the story to a newspaper (presumably the Daily Telegraph) who then got hold of the court documents. In fact, many of the online reports cite The Daily Telegraph as their source, "Court documents seen by The Daily Telegraph reveal police took out the AVO on behalf of Ms Ruscoe following an incident at the couple's Bellvue Hill apartment last month." When did the press know about this incident? Who informed the reporters about the court documents? And when will we hear from Channel 10, will they make an official statement about it or hope that nobody would notice that Sid is about to go to court next week to face some pretty serious charges? Furthermore, can somebody please check on Ash please: she looks like the kind of  battered wife who would be beaten daily by a very abusive partner only to be the first to defend him in public.

Okay so that's it from me on this topic. This is obviously a developing situation but I couldn't wait till the next episode to talk about this in the recap and at least I felt I have had my say on the issue properly, so in the next post I can just focus on what happened in episode 3 - I didn't want this discussion to cloud the the recap for episode 3 hence I had to get all this off my chest here today. I just hope that Ash is alright and that she is getting the support she needs whilst I hope that the Australian courts will deliver justice and throw Sid in jail for a long time. Karma, you have a well and truly taken me by surprise! Please let me know your thoughts on this situation by leaving a comment below and many thanks for reading.