{"id":195385,"date":"2025-10-07T12:53:20","date_gmt":"2025-10-07T12:53:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/195385\/"},"modified":"2025-10-07T12:53:20","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T12:53:20","slug":"geelong-star-bailey-smith-responds-to-mad-monday-backlash-after-mitch-brown-said-heath-ledgers-way-hotter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/195385\/","title":{"rendered":"Geelong star Bailey Smith responds to Mad Monday backlash after Mitch Brown said \u2018Heath Ledger\u2019s way hotter\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Geelong star Bailey Smith has fired back after he was criticised for his social media posts during Geelong\u2019s Mad Monday antics.<\/p>\n

The AFL\u2019s first openly bisexual player Mitch Brown called out Smith\u2019s series of controversial Instagram posts during the Cats\u2019 end-of-season celebrations, particularly an image of Smith and Patrick Dangerfield referencing the film Brokeback Mountain, captioned, \u201cthis is what losing a granny does to ya.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"SmithSmith captioned the clip: \u2018or brokeback mountain depends how ya look at it\u2019 and \u2018this is what losing a granny does to ya.\u2019 Credit: Instagram\/bazlenka<\/p>\n

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In response, Brown posted a picture of Heath Ledger from Brokeback Mountain, writing, \u201cJust for the record, Heath Ledger\u2019s way hotter.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"MitchMitch Brown slammed Bailey Smith. Credit: Instagram @mitchbrownie<\/p>\n

He then followed up with another pointed remark: \u201cLast time I checked, losing a Grand Final doesn\u2019t make you gay, but being homophobic definitely makes you a loser.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"MitchMitch Brown\u2019s Instagram story. Credit: @mitchbrownie<\/p>\n

On Monday night, Smith appeared to reply with an Instagram story of Ledger raising his middle finger.<\/p>\n

\"SmithSmith appeared to reply with an Instagram story of Ledger raising his middle finger. Credit: Instagram\/bazlenka<\/p>\n

The fallout comes amid further controversy, with veteran journalist Caroline Wilson blasting Smith<\/a> for an \u201cinsulting and sexist message\u201d after he mocked her in a now-deleted Instagram post.<\/p>\n

During the celebrations, Smith\u2019s teammate Max Holmes arrived dressed as Wilson, a moment Smith posted online with the caption, \u201cCaro has never looked better,\u201d paired with a sweat droplets emoji.<\/p>\n

\"SmithSmith later added a photo with Holmes, captioning it \u201cCaro has never looked better,\u201d before quickly deleting the post. Credit: Instagram\/bazlenka<\/p>\n

Wilson\u2019s criticism follows her previous comments, branding Smith a \u201cbrat\u201d after an incident involving a female photographer at a training session.<\/p>\n

Amid the drama, Geelong\u2019s football boss Andrew Mackie addressed the club\u2019s position, stating, \u201cObviously, we\u2019re not perfect. We don\u2019t stand here and pretend to be \u2026 Every now and then, there\u2019s things that pop up that ideally don\u2019t, but we can only learn and educate from here our players and our people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mackie dismissed reports that the club had lost track of Smith, saying, \u201cNo, that wasn\u2019t all factual \u2013 I was aware what he was up to.\u201d<\/p>\n

He reiterated confidence in the club\u2019s management of Smith, adding, \u201cBut, like I said, I get the interest in Bailey. But him playing footy this year is a real success story for the game \u2026 we\u2019re all not perfect. We\u2019ve just got to continue to keep working together and those little moments that might bubble away, we\u2019ve just got to keep on educating.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Geelong star Bailey Smith has fired back after he was criticised for his social media posts during Geelong\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":195386,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[638,43,44,588,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-195385","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-sport","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195385\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}