Roxy Jacenko has copped a $6,000 fine from Waverly Council for the PR stunt she pulled for electric bike company Flight Risk last year.
In a bizarre move, the PR maven, 45, presented the $5,699 bikes as a travel alternative to Sydneysiders amid threats of a train strike in November.
But now the entrepreneur is paying the price of the bold campaign, as she’s been slapped with a hefty fine for painting a set of concrete bollards pink without a permit, reported Confidential on Sunday.
Pink is the colour theme of the Flight Risk brand, which Roxy slapped on several council-owned bollards that are usually used to mark boundaries and guide traffic.
Anyone who wants to paint or otherwise graffiti a bollard requires a permit, but it appears Roxy failed to get one when she used them as a prop for her PR campaign.
‘It was quite a statement,’ Roxy claimed, seemingly unperturbed by the fine given the millions she’s made from her recently reopened PR company Sweaty Betty.
‘They were already painted all different colours, some graffitied, so really the council should be happy, at least they were all one colour and had some uniformity.’
The bollards have since been returned to their previous colours.
Roxy, who has just reopened her public relations agency Sweaty Betty, had a rather bizarre solution for fans amid Sydney‘s commuter chaos late last year.
Despite being known as an expert in all things advertising, she promoted bikes costing up to $5,699 as the solution for those unable to get trains during the strike.
Sydney’s rail network almost came to a halt for three days at the time, after negotiations between the NSW government and the transport union broke down.
Thankfully, the NSW government reached a deal with the rail union in the 11th hour and prevented a train strike.
Nevertheless, Roxy, who personally owns at least half a dozen expensive luxury vehicles and drives to work, took full advantage of the chaos at the time.
‘I mean, you need to get to work—no train, buses overloaded…’ she captioned several screenshots of the news that she posted to her social media.
The post was then immediately followed by an advertisement for a PR stunt for one her clients, Flight Risk.
‘Paused trains. Unstoppable rides. Ride with us from 7am. Central Station. Tomorrow,’ the post read.
The electric bike company, who sells bikes for between $1,999 and $5,699, then shared a video of half a dozen of their bikes parked in Sydney’s CBD to Instagram.
From 7 to 10am on November 21, the company offered commuters free rides to work on the back of their electric bikes—within a 15km radius.
Half a dozen staff stood outside Central Station with hot pink signs offering to let commuters hop on the back of the bikes and be dropped off at their offices.
‘A rail strike threat? A PR dream for me,’ Roxy captioned a video of the stunt shared to her Instagram.
The last time Roxy caught a train personally was 26 years ago, a Sweaty Betty spokeswoman told Daily Mail Australia at the time.
‘Last time RJ caught the train was in 1998! Town Hall, to Kings Cross, to school,’ she said.
‘It’s safe to say the PR queen of Australia is back in the game seizing any opportunity!’
The 36-hour strike was set to be one of the largest shut downs of the rail network in New South Wales’ history.
Millions of travellers were at risk of being stranded over a weekend after the state government balked at the Rail Tram and Bus Union’s (RTBU) demand for a 32 per cent pay increase.
Train drivers threatened to go on strike from 10pm November 21 and remain out of action until 6am November 24, unless an 11th hour compromise could be reached.
Meanwhile, the rail network shutting down did not worry Roxy at all, as she managed to spin it into a PR campaign and was able to happily drive herself around in one of her many luxury cars.
Prior to her Singapore relocation, Roxy’s stable of luxury cars included half a dozen, such as a jet black 2021 Mercedes-Benz G-Class G63 AMG, which has a price tag of around $300,000, among many others.
Roxy previously posted a picture of her ride parked next to her Porsche Taycan Turbo S car—one of only four all electric Porsches in Australia.
The well-known media personality is also the proud owner of a $250,000 Porsche Cayenne GTS, which she crashed.
After popping the tyre on her 11-year-old daughter Pixie’s $276,000 Mercedes-Benz GLS, the PR dynamo treated herself to a a bright red $420,600 Ferrari 488 as she wrapped up work in 2022.
The beauty has also been regularly seen in the past racing around in her own Aston Martin Vantage, worth a staggering $380,000.
