Story highlights
Grandmother stripped off and ran in the rain at racing carnival
She said it was a "bit of fun" meant to brighten up a dull day
Oh Sue!
Australia has a new hero by the name of Sue Veering Bentley.
The 52-year-old grandmother and mother-of-five stripped down to her underwear and ran around in the rain in a vibrant display of youthful exuberance at a racing carnival in Melbourne on Thursday.
“It was wet, it was miserable and I thought let’s embrace it. You can always run out of the rain or you could run in it, couldn’t you?” she told Australian radio station 3AW.
“When your mother says wear good undies she was right wasn’t she? I had my Bridget Joneses on, oh dear,” Bentley said, referring to the big pants worn by Renee Zellweger in the 2001 film “Bridget Jones’s Diary.”
Unlike Bridget Jones, Bentley says she has no regrets about her public exposure, which came after only one or two champagnes consumed on the way to the Oaks Day event.
“I think it’s a bit of fun. The world’s too serious – should be more of it.”
Her five children, however, beg to differ.
“My son’s in Thailand. He says he’s staying there and applying for citizenship,” she told the Nine Network. “The other three are wanting to change their name and my daughter doesn’t want to go to school today.”
Bentley’s friend Debbie Delmo described the events leading up to the streak.
“She was complaining how wet her dress was and it was see-through anyway. I said I’d give you $10 if you do a nudie run. And one of the other girls yelled, ‘No, no,’ and I said, ‘Why what’s the problem?’ And they said she’ll do it.”
And she did.
“I thought it was fabulous because I’ve never laughed so hard,” Delmo told 3AW.
Bentley says her outlook on life changed forever two years ago when she had a near-death experience, and had to be revived by paramedics.
“Ever since then, you go ‘Life is what it is.’ Don’t regret anything and if you can make people laugh … why not?”
Asked whether she’d do it again, Bentley said, “Absolutely (but) probably not tomorrow.”