Aussie Bum Fight
aussieBum underwear CEO Sean Ashby talks about his nasty encounter with ex-supermodel Janice Dickinson
When Aussie underwear company, aussieBum, was invited to be part of the Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency television show in Los Angeles, a clash between it's CEO Sean Ashby and Ms Dickinson soon had everyone's knickers in a twist.
Sean Ashby, the Sydney-based CEO of underwear firm aussieBum, was delighted when former US model Janice Dickinson contacted him last year and asked if he was interested in using her Los Angeles modelling agency to find the next face of aussieBum's new product, the Wonderjock, for the US market.
:: Sean Ashby with one of his aussieBum designs ::
"I was absolutely thrilled at the opportunity of further exposing the aussieBum brand," says Ashby, 40. An added bonus, he says, was that the process was to be filmed for an episode of the Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency reality-TV show.
Then, says Ashby, came a rude reality check. He claims a snarky script was already written before he got to LA in November to record the program. "The storyline was that this underwear brand [aussieBum] comes along-we make fools of them," says Ashby. "It was a bad feeling. We just wanted to get the heck away."
Dickinson, Ashby says, behaved like a Jekyll and Hyde character and, "As soon as she wasn't near us she was calling us everything under the sun." Finally, Ashby took a page out of Donald Trump's reality-TV book, telling Dickinson: "You're fired!"'
Sean Ashby vs Janice Part 1
The program's executive producer Stuart Krasnow denied Ashby's claims of a set up saying: "The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency is an unscripted show. If you check the credits, there is no 'writer' or 'writers'. If Sean Ashby was following a script, it must have been his own, and if anybody in Australia thinks that they can predict the behaviour of Ms. Dickinson, please track me down... I could use your help."
While it may have made for good TV, the incident-it aired in the US in January-was a lesson in PR for Ashby, who is now opting for the "eyes wide open" approach.
Still, the saga hasn't hit aussieBum's bottom line, with sales of the Wonderjock continuing to soar globally (Daniel Craig, David Beckham and Ewan McGregor are fans). "They did what any good production company would do," Ashby concedes. "They had a great story with drama, with international accusations flying."
Ashby's final salute to Ms Dickinson and her agency came when, instead of passing on the $10,000 fee to the agency, he gave the money to a struggling village school in South Africa during a visit there in February.
Sean Ashby vs Janice Part 2
Since February 4, 2006