The singer Shannon Noll has been charged over the alleged assault of a security guard at an Adelaide strip club.
Noll was arrested and charged with two counts of assault after an altercation outside the Crazy Horse Revue at 2.30am on Sunday.
A witness quoted by the Adelaide Advertiser said he had seen Noll, “intoxicated and screaming”, being forcibly removed from the club by security guards. “He kept saying, ‘I’m Shannon Noll, let me back in,’” said the bystander of the Australian Idol runner-up.
Noll was taken away in a police car after reportedly punching a security guard. He was bailed to appear in Adelaide magistrates court on 24 February.
The Crazy Horse Revue, on Hindley Street, describes itself on its website as “the home of ‘Miss Nude Australia’ ... where fantasy becomes reality”.
The 41-year-old singer was in South Australia to perform What About Me and other songs at the Sounds By the River music festival in Mannum on Saturday.
Many posts on Noll’s Facebook page referenced the altercation on Sunday. “Nollsie what you been up to old fella!!! I heard from bazza that you ending up in the clink last night!?? Are you alright trooper? Let me know if you want me to come bail you out,” commented one Noll supporter.
Just two days before his arrest, Noll had shared a photo of his new vegetable garden with his 160,000 followers: “A little late this year, but I put in a little veggie patch anyway. Could’ve picked a cooler day but got it done! Nothing like home grown veggies! I would luv to have some chooks as well! Maybe down the track!”
Since placing second to Guy Sebastian in the first season of Australian Idol in 2003, Noll has found a new life as an internet sensation, with hordes of young Australians championing him more than a decade on.
A Facebook petition to “Get Shannon Noll to Groovin’ the Moo” in January last year received thousands of likes, though it did not achieved its stated purpose. A subsequent campaign among Victorian high school students to write “Shannon Noll was robbed of the 2003 Australian Idol title” on their exam papers was more successful.
Noll told News Corp Australia in September that he was embracing viral infamy, releasing a single, Who I Am, to capitalise on it. “Some of the stuff they’ve done is bloody brilliant and very clever and very funny,” he said. “I reckon half of the kids putting together these memes need to be on my marketing team.
“They’re not being offensive towards me, they’re genuinely funny. I’ve done my time where what people were saying about me on social media wasn’t positive.
“Where people used to enjoy taking the piss out of me or having a go at me from behind the computer screen now it feels like it’s cool to be in my corner. I put it down to that thing where you go to a game of footy and you boo a guy for so long you end up cheering for him. I’m running with it.”
