Model Holly Carpenter has given her views on THAT Michaella McCollum interview aired on RTE.
The convicted drug mule spoke on air for the first time last week about smuggling drugs into Ibiza in 2013, and told all about what life was like in the Peruvian prison that she was recently released from.
Holly has called the interview “well rehearsed” and that the prime focus was largely on her appearance and not what she had to say.
Writing in her column for the Irish Independent, she said:”Before the show even started, the focus was largely on her physical transformation. The Tyrone native was dressed in a smart white blazer, black jeans and showed off a head of blonde highlights, complemented by a red lipstick.”
Holly thinks that the interview was done to gain public support and sympathy, and if this was the case then it ultimately failed.
“I got the impression that McCollum’s reason for doing this interview was to gain some sort of public support and sympathy. She portrayed herself as a young, naive girl who just made a few mistakes. But if her goal was to win hearts and minds, then you could say it didn’t exactly go to plan,” she said.
Holly’s view seems to echo public opinion, as since the interview aired, the Northern Ireland native has received a lot of backlash. The former Miss Ireland states in her column that if Michaella had put her hands up and admitted her wrong doing then her opinion of her may have changed, but instead she went down the “everyone makes mistakes route”.
The model told her readers that this was much more than a mistake that every twenty-something makes, and that it is a serious crime.
“When I was 20, I too was young and naive and got caught smuggling a naggin of vodka into a nightclub,” she commented.
“That’s a normal silly mistake to make at that age in my eyes. But attempting to smuggle 11kg of cocaine is obviously a serious crime that bares no comparison. You can’t just play it down by saying ‘Ah, sure I was only young’.”
