AFL blackface scandal: Shocking photos show two footy stars at an end-of-season celebration

Suns players Leigh Osborne has apologised for wearing blackface to imitate his teammate Joel Wilkinson

Shocking photos have emerged showing two AFL players dressed in blackface at an end-of-season team celebration.

The photos of Gold Coast Suns players Leigh Osborne and Alex Sexton were taken at a Wacky Wednesday event to celebrate the end of the AFL season in 2013.

Sexton was dressed as an Indigenous teammate and Osborne was imitating Joel Wilkinson – who is of Nigerian descent.

Wilkinson said he was ‘mortified and angry’ and reported the incident, but claims nothing was done. 

Both Osborne and Sexton have apologised to Wilkinson for their outfits. 

Wilkinson said Osborne told him beforehand he wanted to impersonate him – but only by mimicking his training gear and equipment.

Osborne (pictured centre in blue and white shirt) and Alex Sexton painted themselves in blackface at a Wacky Wednesday event to celebrate the end of the season in 2013. His teammate Joel Wilkinson is pictured shirtless far right with a drum

‘When I arrived I saw him and another teammate in black paint, I was mortified and so angry I couldn’t believe he came in black paint,’ Wilkinson told the Herald Sun. 

‘I tried to stop it during the event, I thought when we returned from the event they would be held accountable by the club, the Gold Coast Suns, but nothing happened to my dismay.’

He expected players and officials to be reprimanded and photos of the outfits shared on social media to be removed – but claimed it didn’t happen. 

‘It [the response to his complaints about the blackface incident] very much was a representation of my whole career in the AFL and how they never cared or put in place the systems to protect my wellbeing against racism,’ he said. 

After years of frustration, Wilkinson decided to release key documents to the media – including the photos and a legal warning he received.

Wilkinson eventually filed a lawsuit in May 2018 against the AFL, four individuals, the Suns and six other teams claiming racial discrimination and religious vilification.  

Former AFL player Joel Wilkinson later filed an Australian Human Rights Commission case in 2018 against the league claiming they had not properly dealt with his concerns about racism

Leigh Osborne pictured in Port Melbourne colours in 2017. He said he only found out about his ex-teammate’s complaint to the Human Rights Commission years later in 2018

Pictured: AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan. The league said blackface ‘is never acceptable in any forum or at any time’

He withdrew the complaint in 2019. 

The Suns said in a statement Sexton and an Indigenous teammate had agreed to dress up as one another and paint each other’s skin black and white respectively.

‘The Suns view the choice of outfits in the photo and on that day to be inappropriate, unacceptable and regrettable,’ a team spokesman said. 

Sexton has apologised for the incident and said he accepted his decision as offensive and inappropriate.

‘At the time I just saw it as two housemates dressing up as each other,’ he said.

‘Looking back, I regret that decision. While I meant no harm, I certainly accept today that it was inappropriate and I now understand how upsetting and offensive my actions were.’ 

Wilkinson pictured in Suns training gear at a recovery session on the Gold Coast in 2012

Osborne has also responded to the release of the photos by admitting he understood what he did ‘was wrong’. 

He also claimed Wilkinson never made an issue with his costume on the day and that he only found out about the complaint to the Human Rights Commission years later in 2018. 

‘I never meant to hurt or ridicule him but looking back now I understand it was wrong,’ he said.

‘I was a pretty young bloke in 2013 and have come to learn a lot more about these things since then and I am sorry to have caused any trouble or hurt and obviously wouldn’t ever do it again.’