Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan may have finally gone too far in his feud with Australia, as the president now faces an uprising after calling the late Australian conservationist Steve Irwin a “little bitch.”
Erdogan’s comments marked the climax of a series of threats aimed at Australia’s citizens since a terror attack last week by an Australian white supremacist killed 50 Muslim worshippers in New Zealand. Erdogan threatened to send Australian tourists home in body bags and referenced World War I’s Battle of Gallipoli.
But on Friday, Erdogan crossed the line, telling a crowd of supporters that he will “stab those Australians in the heart, just like that stingray did to that little bitch Steve Irwin.” The remark was met with silence and then boos from the crowd, which quickly turned on the president. Soon Erdogan was forced to flee, as the crowd began throwing stones and Molotov cocktails.
“I stopped talking to him a decade ago after he made a distasteful comment about Heath Ledger,” Fethullah Gulen, a religious leader and critic of Erdogan, told The Mideast Beast. “I guess he hasn’t changed at all. Didn’t he see what happened to PETA?”
As of press time, Erdogan had been overthrown in a popularly-supported coup with Bindi Irwin, Steve Irwin’s only daughter, installed as interim president.
