Having been excommunicated from the world {of professional} biking, Lance Armstrong – one of many most notorious dopers in sports activities historical past – has taken on a brand new profession in actuality tv.
The Texan is showing within the present ‘Stars on Mars’ – Fox’s newest foray into the huge panorama of competitors primarily based “actuality” that incorporates a baffling array of different public figures.
A tedious insult to precise astronauts, the present has gamers sporting video game-like fits and simulating colonising Mars with the South Australia outback offering the set for the out of doors scenes.
The manufacturing has raised some hackles in Australia. In response to native information experiences, the SA Movie Company mentioned it was unaware that the disgraced bike owner was on the forged of the present being filmed in Coober Pedy.
The manufacturing obtained monetary assist as a part of Australia’s Location Incentive, that means Armstrong is once more, this time not directly, benefitting from Australian residents’ tax {dollars}.
Armstrong was given $1 million US (on the time 1.5 million AUD) by the South Australian authorities to compete within the Tour Down Below in 2009 – after he got here out of retirement – a proven fact that solely emerged a decade later when the contract’s non-disclosure clause expired.
The treasurer of South Australia, Rob Lucas, printed details about the deal as a part of his marketing campaign in 2019, sparking outrage that taxpayer funds had been used to line the pockets of a rider already the topic of quite a few allegations of dishonest with performance-enhancing medicine.
Armstrong, after having his lengthy historical past of doping uncovered in an intensive investigation by USADA in 2012, went on to confess to doping on the Oprah Winfrey Present in 2013.
He was additionally the topic of a federal lawsuit underneath the False Claims Act in the USA, settling the doubtless $100 million case in 2018 by agreeing to pay the federal government $5 million.
The present is hosted by 92-year-old Star Trek star William Shatner and in addition contains actors Ariel Winter – who mistook Armstrong for deceased astronaut Neil Armstrong within the opening episode – Tallulah Willis, comic Natasha Leggero, Porsha Williams, MMA fighter Ronda Rousey, determine skater Adam Rippon and former NFL operating again Marshawn Lynch. Christopher Mintz-Plasse was eradicated within the first episode which aired this week.
