Lisa Wilkinson on her final 24 hours at the Today show: 'Let me down'
Lisa Wilkinson has taken aim at her former colleagues on the Today show, saying she thought there were people she could trust, but they let her down.
The 61-year-old The Project host is currently on the campaign trail for her memoir It Wasn't Meant To Be Like This and has taken to Instagram to tease out what really happened in the final hours of her time on the breakfast TV show.
In her Instagram post, Lisa said an extract will appear tomorrow in the Daily Telegraph where she will open up about her last time at the Today show. However, she gave fans a snippet of what might be to come.
"I detail for the first time what really happened in those final 24 hours of my more than ten years at the Today Show," she said.
“I left Channel Nine incredibly grateful for the opportunity of having that role, proud of the work I had done, and knowing that together we had taken the show to number one in the breakfast TV ratings (something no one thought we could do back in 2007)…and I still have some truly precious friendships from that time that endure to this day.
“But, at the end, there were people I thought I could trust, who let me down.
“And yet, I now know that it was all meant to happen for a really important reason.”
RELATED
Lisa Wilkinson ‘concerned’ about Karl Stefanovic’s reaction to memoir
Lisa Wilkinson signs ‘lucrative’ multi-year deal with The Project
The Project's Lisa Wilkinson struggles to hold back tears: 'So sorry'
It comes after Lisa opened up about being "humiliated" and "betrayed" by former employer Nine when she was "dismissed" from her role.
Speaking to Hamish MacDonald on The Project, Lisa shared what it was really like for her to be told she no longer had a job after attempting to close the gender pay gap on the show.
When asked where she was when she found out the news, Lisa responded, "I was standing in aisle six at Woolies holding a can of tuna. I felt stupid and humiliated and betrayed and pretty pathetic."
She added that no one knew she had an offer from Channel Ten on the table, "I think the idea was to humiliate me because I'd been in negotiations to try and close the gender pay gap."
Hamish questioned how big the gap was, to which she said: "Doesn't get much bigger than the gap that I experienced. I was very expendable. I didn't even get a chance to say goodbye to your audience, I was told 'that's it'."
He then asked whether or not Lisa still has a friendship with Karl and she told him: "Look, we're not really in touch."
"But you'd like to be?" Hamish pushed.
"I'd rather we didn't use this if you don't mind because I don't, I don't want to look like I'm, you know, but I was hurt," she said with tears in her eyes. "I was hurt, but you pick up and you move on, and that's exactly what I did."
Karl and Lisa seemingly continued their friendship and were seen having lunch together weeks after she was dismissed.
At the time, Lisa told Stellar that a lot of the information about her dismissal from Nine was "untrue".
"It was quite shocking some of the narrative that was put out there by my previous employer," she said. "I feel that there was a lot that was said that was untrue. And I won’t say that some of the things I read weren’t pretty painful."
At the 2019 Logies, it was believed the pair had been ignoring each other, however, Lisa dispelled the rumours, telling Spectrum, "I did see Karl at the Logies."
"I went up and said hi towards the end of the evening because I was feeling a bit sorry for him."
She claimed that Karl had been the butt of every joke at the Logies and she wanted to check in on him.
"I just wanted to make sure he was OK. He became everybody's favourite punchline that night and that can't be easy."
Karl was later dumped from Today in 2018 but returned in early 2020 with new co-host Allison Langdon.
Never miss a thing. Sign up to Yahoo Lifestyle’s daily newsletter.
Or if you have a story idea, email us at lifestyle.tips@verizonmedia.com.
