Hours after what was to be her final episode of Today, Lisa Wilkinson fired off a heated email to two key people in her life.
Lisa Wilkinson has revealed the heated email she sent hours after what was to be her final episode as co-host of Today.
New details from her newly released memoir It Wasn’t Meant To Be Like This provide more detail about the day in October 2017 when Wilkinson was abruptly dropped by the Nine Network after what she describes as a “bizarre” final episode.
In previously released excerpts from the book, Wilkinson wrote that she found herself sidelined during what the episode, with co-host Karl Stefanovic taking the lion’s share of airtime.
“Almost every interview was being done by Karl alone,” she wrote: “I had just about nothing to do.”
“For two hours, I sat there feeling completely useless. The Today Show was now The Karl Show. What was the point of me even being there?”
Wilkinson went straight to Today boss Mark Calvert’s office after the show finished to find out what the issue was – but found he’d already left for the day.
Now, Wilkinson has revealed that as she was waiting for a doctor’s appointment later in the day, she fired off an email about the situation to two key people in her life: Manager Nick Fordham and husband Peter FitzSimons.
“Guys, I‘m going to take a note of how the allocation of hosting roles go down between Karl and me in the coming weeks,” she began.
“Never know when I may need it as a record … This morning I didn’t have a single solo interview, and even the ones Karl and I would normally do together had been given to Karl alone. All I had was the ‘girls chat’ segment at 8.40. What is this the 1960s?”
But that plan never came to fruition – later day, while shopping in the supermarket, Wilkinson fielded a call from Fordham who passed on the news that she’d been let go from Nine, effective immediately.
It was to be a pivotal day in Wilkinson’s TV career – an hour after news broke that she’d left Nine, Ten announced she’d signed a new contract to join them as a host on The Project.
The TV presenter’s memoir was only officially released yesterday, but has been dominating the headlines for weeks as juicy excerpts about her shock departure from the Today show in 2017 were issued to the media by her publisher.
Wilkinson also filmed a candid tell-all interview on The Project, saying she felt “betrayed” by her former employer and had been “hurt” by former co-host Karl Stefanovic as she exited the network over pay parity issues.
But some of her explosive claims have been disputed by industry sources, with counter-claims that Wilkinson was actually paid more than Stefanovic for at least the first six years of their decade on-air together.
Speaking to ABC’s Radio National host Fran Kelly on Wednesday, Wilkinson lashed out at what she called “cheap tabloid headlines” surrounding her book, insisting coverage that questioned her was filled with “lies.”
Elsewhere in her autobiography, Wilkinson claimed that towards the end of their decade-long run as co-hosts, Stefanovic struck a new deal that meant he would be earning $2 million – more than double what she was earning at the network.
Wilkinson wrote that the pay gap was “so off the charts that no-one would have believed it – and much bigger than that figure that had been conveniently leaked”.
Asked by Kelly yesterday exactly how big that pay gap was, Wilkinson said that she “won’t say specifically … but we’re talking in the order of three times.”
Originally published as Lisa Wilkinson reveals heated email she sent after final Today episode
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