Bali drug convict Schapelle Corby is Dancing With the Stars in Australia

Australia’s Dancing With The Stars: All Stars premieres on April 11. Screengrabs: Instagram/@schapelle.corby
Australia’s Dancing With The Stars: All Stars premieres on April 11. Screengrabs: Instagram/@schapelle.corby

Australian drug convict Schapelle Corby, who spent nine years in Kerobokan Prison for smuggling weed into Bali, is one of the newest cast members in Australia’s Dancing With the Stars, the latest season of which is set to premiere this Sunday. 

Since returning to Australia more than three years ago, Corby appears to have banked on her infamy by setting herself on a path to become a reality star. She participated in a quasi-military training television program called SAS Australia just last year, for example, and told New Idea that she was “keeping her options open” regarding TV opportunities. 

The 43-year-old first shared news of her joining Dancing With the Stars via Instagram ⁠— where she has more than 167,000 followers ⁠— in late February, and has since been promoting her debut in the All Stars edition of the reality show.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by DancingAU (@dancingau)

It doesn’t seem like everyone is loving the idea of her appearing on national television in Australia, however. One look at the comment section of the post above, which was from the show’s official account, and you might be reminded of how Corby became a national fixation in Australia throughout the course of her trial (and after) in Indonesia. 

Won’t watch a convicted drug smuggler on a supposed family friendly show,” one user wrote. 

“Drug smuggler on Dancing With the Stars what a joke hope we can vote as she [should] be gone first,” another said. 

In case you need a little refresher, Corby was arrested in Ngurah Rai International Airport back in 2004 for smuggling 4.2 kilograms of marijuana in her boogie board bag. Though she consistently maintained her innocence and insisted that the drugs were planted, she was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2005. 

The sentence was later cut after standard remissions and an appeal to the president, and she was released on parole in early 2014. She stayed in Bali for the length of her parole, which wrapped up in May 2017. 



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