Speaker 1: From Mamma Mia, I'm Mia Friedman, and you're listening to
Speaker 1: No Filter, a podcast where people from all walks of
Speaker 1: life tell their stories very candidly and aren't afraid to
Speaker 1: be vulnerable. And on the subject of candid and vulnerable,
Speaker 1: this is part two of my interview with the iconic,
Speaker 1: Lisa Wilkinson. And if you haven't listened to part one,
Speaker 1: I'd suggest scrolling back through your feed and doing that now.
Speaker 1: You will not want to miss that.
Speaker 1: The second half of the story starts at the Logie's
Speaker 1: and comes crashing down in a tuna aisle of a supermarket.
Speaker 1: Mainly because this is about Lisa's time on breakfast TV,
Speaker 1: specifically her 10 years at the Today Show, alongside Karl Stefanovic.
Speaker 1: And I'm not gonna lie, it gets pretty raw. Again,
Speaker 1: there was stuff in here that I never knew. Lisa
Speaker 1: and Carl had incredible chemistry on air, but off air? Well,
Speaker 1: that's where things start getting a little
Speaker 1: murky.
Speaker 2: I couldn't talk to him for 2 hours, apart from
Speaker 2: what was scripted. I just couldn't talk to him. For
Speaker 2: the first time in over a decade, I didn't trust
Speaker 2: myself that I was gonna play nice.
Speaker 1: Here's part two of my chat with Lisa.
Speaker 1: The way women's magazine editors are depicted often in the
Speaker 1: male mainstream media, whether it's in Devil Wears Prada or newspapers,
Speaker 1: is often dumb, just high heels, frivolous. It's a really
Speaker 1: sexist stereotype, I think. When you went into television, and
Speaker 1: particularly into news television, so when you started hosting Weekend Sunrise,
Speaker 1: and filling in on weekday sunrise,
Speaker 1: Was there a sense of, oh, she's the, the Cleo lass,
Speaker 1: she doesn't know the serious business, cause not many people
Speaker 1: also change careers or change mediums at that stage in
Speaker 1: their life. You weren't 25.
Speaker 1: No reception did you get?
Speaker 2: Well, I was never planning on going into television, ever.
Speaker 2: I used to look at television and think,
Speaker 2: You know, there's some women on television I really like,
Speaker 2: but my God, what an awful medium to be working in.
Speaker 2: Why did you think that? Well, because it was sexist
Speaker 2: for a start, I mean, you'd never see a woman
Speaker 2: hosting any kind of current affairs program. Very few women
Speaker 2: were taken seriously as, as political journalists, whereas now that's
Speaker 2: the norm.
Speaker 1: And women were sort of like the decoration,
Speaker 2: yeah,
Speaker 1: decoration, who the bauble that sits on the side and,
Speaker 1: Ironically, as Ginger Rogers said, does everything that Fred Astaire does,
Speaker 1: but backwards in heels, while the man does all the
Speaker 1: serious stuff. And even when it was, you know, Kochie
Speaker 1: and Mel, even though Mel is an extraordinary journalist and
Speaker 1: that wasn't the reality of the situation, it was often.
Speaker 1: Depicted like that, or Steve Liebman and Tracey Grimshaw on
Speaker 1: the Today Show, back in the 90s. Did you have
Speaker 1: a lot to prove?
Speaker 2: I am the archetypal frog that got put in a
Speaker 2: saucepan of cold water.
Speaker 2: And then slowly came to the boil is how I
Speaker 2: see my career in television because I went on maternity
Speaker 2: leave with my second child, Louis, in 1995. I'd had
Speaker 2: 10 incredible years at Clio and I said,
Speaker 2: I'm done. I think I'm done and I want you
Speaker 2: to put a new editor in. They didn't want to
Speaker 2: put a new editor in. They said, we'll just hold
Speaker 2: the job for you for 12 months. And I said,
Speaker 2: I'm a mum, I've got 2 kids. I feel like
Speaker 2: I need to do something new. Right now, I wanna
Speaker 2: be a mum. I just, I've worked so hard for
Speaker 2: so long, and I know I'm smart at what I do.
Speaker 1: How
Speaker 1: old were you when you had Louis?
Speaker 1: Mid-30s. You wanted a rest, you'd been going, not a rest,
Speaker 1: it's not a rest having two kids at home, but
Speaker 1: you had been working nonstop since you were 21 and
Speaker 1: answered that Girl Friday ad.
Speaker 1: So I get that you had the break. What did
Speaker 1: you find most, like, surprising and difficult to adjust to
Speaker 1: when you, cause when you went to the Today Show
Speaker 1: and hosted with Carl, you were the, what, 4th co-host
Speaker 1: in 4 years or something? Less?
Speaker 2: Somebody asked me this the other day. So there was,
Speaker 2: he started with Tracy started with Tracy, and then he
Speaker 2: had
Speaker 1: Jess Rowe, then Sarah Murdoch.
Speaker 2: Sarah Murdoch, and then Kelly Connolly.
Speaker 1: Kelly, and then
Speaker 2: you, and then me.
Speaker 1: And so, first of all, when was the first time
Speaker 1: you met? You tell a story in the book about
Speaker 1: meeting at the Logies, when there was all this speculation
Speaker 1: in the newspaper about you were gonna jump from sunrise
Speaker 1: to We in Sunrise to the Today Show. What was
Speaker 1: that meeting like? Basically,
Speaker 2: what had happened, I mean, right throughout my career, when
Speaker 2: I went from Fairfax to ACP, when I went from
Speaker 2: Channel 7 to Channel 9, and when I went from
Speaker 2: Channel 9 to Channel 10,
Speaker 2: I've always moved because an offer has come along and
Speaker 2: I've always agonized over it because every single job I've
Speaker 2: ever had, even right back to at the age of
Speaker 2: 15 working at Wrench's shoe store in Campbelltown on Thursday
Speaker 2: nights and Saturday mornings, I've loved every job I've ever had.
Speaker 2: I've always approached work with enormous gratitude.
Speaker 2: And I've made the most of every single day and
Speaker 2: every single job that I've had, and I've never had
Speaker 2: an eye to something else. It's always been because something
Speaker 2: else has come along, and I've thought, I wonder if
Speaker 2: I'm done here.
Speaker 1: And Eddie McGuire came and tapped you on the shoulder.
Speaker 1: He was CEO at the time. Well, Eddie
Speaker 2: approached me via, it's all explained in the book of
Speaker 2: how it all happened.
Speaker 2: I'd known Eddie from my Cleo days because when I
Speaker 2: took out the centerfold, I thought, you know, if you're
Speaker 2: gonna take away 12 naked guys with one hand, you've
Speaker 2: gotta give Australian women something back. And not long after
Speaker 2: I got rid of the centerfold, I thought, I know,
Speaker 2: I'll start Australia's list of 50 most eligible bachelors. And
Speaker 2: Eddie
Speaker 1: was one of them,
Speaker 2: Eddie was desperate to be on that list, let's be honest,
Speaker 2: and a few of his mates were on the list
Speaker 2: from Melbourne.
Speaker 2: And he came along a couple of years in a row,
Speaker 2: and he kept giving me his business card, and he
Speaker 2: was incredibly charming, and he was single, and he was
Speaker 2: very successful, and I thought, I'll give this poor guy
Speaker 2: a break. And then, you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't know that, so all those years later, he
Speaker 1: came and approached you
Speaker 2: for this job. At that point, I'd been asked by
Speaker 2: the infamous Mark Llewellyn.
Speaker 2: On the very day that the whole boning incident broke,
Speaker 2: I was at lunch with Mark Llewellyn, who was the
Speaker 2: head of news and current affairs at Nine, and I'd
Speaker 2: known him since I was 19, 0 no, it must
Speaker 2: have been 21, because he was a mate of my
Speaker 2: then boyfriend's who worked at the ABC and we ran
Speaker 2: into each other at a friend's wedding.
Speaker 2: At a time when I was hosting Weekend Sunrise, so
Speaker 2: he was trying to poach you. Well, no, we were
Speaker 2: just getting together for lunch, because when we saw each
Speaker 2: other at this wedding, he said, oh let's get together,
Speaker 2: we've got so many stories to share, and he'd just
Speaker 2: come back from, basically being the guy on the ground
Speaker 2: for both the Today Show and The Current Affair at
Speaker 2: the mining disaster in Beaconsfield in Tasmania.
Speaker 2: And we sat down to have lunch and he was
Speaker 2: distracted throughout the entire lunch cos he said, I've got
Speaker 2: a really important phone call coming through. That was, which
Speaker 2: was the infamous shit sandwich story. You've gotta read the
Speaker 2: book to understand all this so
Speaker 1: so there's so delicious detail. The first time you met Kyle,
Speaker 1: what was
Speaker 1: it like?
Speaker 2: Well, I had been offered the Morning Show, which was
Speaker 2: just about to start on Channel 7 after Sunrise because
Speaker 2: Sunrise at that time was a runaway success. It was
Speaker 2: doubling the Today Show's numbers.
Speaker 2: And Adam Bolan, the genius behind the Sunrise brand, going back,
Speaker 2: was starting up the morning show and he said, I
Speaker 2: really want you to host this show and I've already
Speaker 2: got your co-host, it's Larry Emda. And he said, I
Speaker 2: can see it already, the Lisa and Larry show, but
Speaker 2: we're gonna call it the morning show, but everybody will
Speaker 2: knows Lisa and Larry because obviously Mel and Kochie were
Speaker 2: a single entity in Australia's mind at that stage.
Speaker 2: And
Speaker 2: I remembered thinking,
Speaker 2: I know Larry Emdda's a journalist, but he was best
Speaker 2: known as a quiz show guy at that point. And
Speaker 2: Adam looked at me and he said, I know what
Speaker 2: you're thinking, he's a quiz show guy, but he's not,
Speaker 2: and I know you two will be fantastic together, but
Speaker 2: that happened at the same time as I was offered
Speaker 2: the Today Show, and no one knew that I'd been
Speaker 2: approached by Channel Nine. It all happened very quickly. But
Speaker 2: on the day,
Speaker 2: That someone tried to obviously force my hand, it was
Speaker 2: leaked to the papers.
Speaker 2: Now, the Today Show co-hosting role at that point was
Speaker 2: the most talked about job on Australian television, and it
Speaker 2: was a bit of a poisoned chalice because Carl had
Speaker 2: had so many women he'd sat next to. Sunrise had
Speaker 2: double the numbers.
Speaker 2: And
Speaker 1: it was a bit of a hospital pass in a way,
Speaker 1: wasn't it? Well, yeah, I mean, no, that sounds bad,
Speaker 1: but it was like daunting because there'd been so many
Speaker 1: people through that chair, they hadn't confirmed that it was
Speaker 1: gonna be anybody, so it was like, who's it gonna be?
Speaker 2: And also the media.
Speaker 2: hated the Today Show at that stage. Sunrise was the
Speaker 2: hottest show on television. It was. But the problem was
Speaker 2: having hosted Weekend Sunrise and having filled in for Mel
Speaker 2: a couple of times, you had the bug. Breakfast TV
Speaker 2: is intoxicating because you are.
Speaker 2: In people's lounge rooms in the morning, you're helping them
Speaker 2: wake up at a time in the day when everyone's unshowered,
Speaker 2: everyone's feeling a bit raw, you know, parents are trying
Speaker 2: to find missing socks and make school lunches and if
Speaker 2: you can be a bright, informed presence in their lives,
Speaker 2: I mean, that's such an extraordinary privilege to be welcomed
Speaker 2: into people's homes and for them to trust you.
Speaker 2: And I understood what that was at sunrise, but I
Speaker 2: also understood that Mel had a job for life. The
Speaker 2: obvious successor, yeah, the obvious successor was Natalie Barr. Um,
Speaker 2: if I was really, really, really lucky when I was 112,
Speaker 2: that
Speaker 2: job could be mine.
Speaker 1: You might be in with a chance. And
Speaker 2: I
Speaker 2: just thought, I know that.
Speaker 2: That job looks like a poisoned chalice at the moment.
Speaker 2: But I've got the bug and I know everybody's kind
Speaker 2: of having a bit of a go at this guy
Speaker 2: Karl Stefanovic, but every so often when I tune in
Speaker 2: I think he's kind of funny.
Speaker 2: And a few times I'd seen him out on the
Speaker 2: road at breaking stories and I thought he's actually quite
Speaker 2: a good journo. He's very good at that. So when
Speaker 2: I was offered I was unsure, but if there's one
Speaker 2: day in the year when you don't want that story
Speaker 2: on the front page of the papers, it's probably the
Speaker 2: day of the Logies and that story broke on the day,
Speaker 2: That I had landed in Melbourne as a guest of
Speaker 2: Channel 7 to sit on the Sunrise table and front
Speaker 2: page of many
Speaker 2: newspapers.
Speaker 1: Lisa goes to Channel 9. Well,
Speaker 2: it was, she's probably going to go,
Speaker 1: right, and you hadn't decided yet.
Speaker 2: I definitely hadn't decided. The, the offer had only been
Speaker 2: made a few days before, and I was desperate that
Speaker 2: no-one knew about it because I didn't, I didn't want
Speaker 2: the pressure of deciding.
Speaker 2: Publicly,
Speaker 1: who introduced you to Kyle that night?
Speaker 2: Well, I went to the loo, and as you may know,
Speaker 2: when you go to the loo at the Logies, you
Speaker 2: have to do it in about 13 seconds flat because
Speaker 2: it's a live broadcast. Yeah, and the problem with going
Speaker 2: to the loo at the Logies, particularly the women's loo,
Speaker 2: is everybody's got zippers and buttons and chill
Speaker 2: and
Speaker 2: you know, there's stuff going on in the toilets that,
Speaker 2: you know, means that there's a very long queue because
Speaker 2: a lot of women are catching up, haven't seen each other.
Speaker 2: In a long time, and so going to the loo
Speaker 2: takes a long time, so getting in and out in
Speaker 2: the space of one commercial break is well nigh impossible,
Speaker 2: and they slam the doors shut, the minute they're back
Speaker 2: from the ad break, and I got caught, and I
Speaker 2: sort of looked around and there's always a bar right
Speaker 2: outside the room.
Speaker 2: Back in the days when it was at Crown, and
Speaker 2: I saw Larry Emer standing at the bar, and Larry
Speaker 2: and I had not had any conversation about the fact
Speaker 2: that I'd been offered the morning show, so it was
Speaker 2: news to them as well wow that I was not,
Speaker 2: Necessarily going to go to the morning show, and I
Speaker 2: saw Larry and I thought,
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna have to face this front on, and
Speaker 2: I waved, and he went, oh hi, how are you?
Speaker 2: and he sort of walked over towards me, and um
Speaker 2: he said it's great to see you, how weird is this?
Speaker 2: And I said, yeah, I know, look, I'd love to
Speaker 2: chat to you about it, but I really can't. And
Speaker 2: he said, that's OK, I think there's probably somebody else
Speaker 2: you'd like to chat to. And he sort of grabbed
Speaker 2: the shoulder of the guy standing behind him at the
Speaker 2: bar and said, Lisa Wilkinson, I'd like you to meet
Speaker 2: Karl Stefanovic.
Speaker 2: And I thought, oh my God, this just isn't gonna
Speaker 2: get any worse than this, like, so what did Karl
Speaker 2: say awkward.
Speaker 2: We basically started making each other laugh from the opening sentence.
Speaker 2: And we got through yet another commercial break and stayed talking,
Speaker 2: because I think we both knew that this was now.
Speaker 2: An audition,
Speaker 1: a chemistry test,
Speaker 2: for both of us. And
Speaker 2: We just knew that we got on really well. We
Speaker 2: made each other laugh, there was no pregnant pause in
Speaker 2: the conversation.
Speaker 2: And I think Larry Emda just sort of stood back
Speaker 2: and folded his arms feeling like a very proud old builder.
Speaker 1: Well, the rest is history. You became the host. Today
Speaker 1: dominated the ratings, you and Carl were a formidable team.
Speaker 1: A lot has been speculated on in terms of your
Speaker 1: off-air friendship and what went on, you've written about it
Speaker 1: extensively in the book.
Speaker 1: How would you characterize your off-air relationship compared to your
Speaker 1: on-air relationship?
Speaker 2: On-air was pretty magical.
Speaker 2: And it was an on-air relationship that
Speaker 2: Was kind of so good we never talked about it,
Speaker 2: because it's one of those things where you think, if
Speaker 2: you start to question it or examine it, maybe some
Speaker 2: of the magic would go, in some ways Carl and
Speaker 2: I were quite different, and that was also part of
Speaker 2: the magic.
Speaker 2: And we could definitely make each other laugh, we could
Speaker 2: definitely challenge each other.
Speaker 2: But it was actually a really good on-air relationship.
Speaker 2: We almost never saw each other off-air.
Speaker 2: And there were times when I wondered why that was,
Speaker 2: because I did tend to reach out a lot more
Speaker 2: than Carl ever reached out. But, you know, the magic
Speaker 2: continued on air, and we went from a show that
Speaker 2: had half the ratings of Sunrise to building, like, we
Speaker 2: had our first win within 12 months of us being together, which,
Speaker 2: you know, Carl and I went out and celebrated.
Speaker 2: With his wife and my husband, because we couldn't believe
Speaker 2: that in the space of just 12 months, we'd managed
Speaker 2: to do that, and we both looked at each other
Speaker 2: that night and said, whatever happens from here, we can
Speaker 2: always say that once upon a time, we beat sunrise.
Speaker 2: So it was a great night of celebration.
Speaker 2: But, um, as I say in the book, for a
Speaker 2: long time Carl wanted to get off breakfast TV. He
Speaker 2: wanted to do prime time.
Speaker 1: Um, did you ever talk about that?
Speaker 2: No, I never found out about
Speaker 1: that. Were there parameters in your, like, I imagine it's
Speaker 1: very intimate, you're with each other from 5:30 in the
Speaker 1: morning or whatever it is, you turn up half asleep,
Speaker 1: see each other in your most difficult times, you're covering
Speaker 1: breaking news, the highs and the lows.
Speaker 1: I think it was 4 hours a day at one stage,
Speaker 1: the Today Show seemed to go for hours and hours.
Speaker 1: 5 days a week.
Speaker 2: The day that um Julia Gillard became Prime Minister, we
Speaker 2: were on air from 5 a.m.
Speaker 2: Until 4 p.m. So
Speaker 1: the amount of trust I imagine is massive, where you
Speaker 1: have to have each other's backs and I've watched you
Speaker 1: two on
Speaker 1: set
Speaker 2: and know each other's strengths and weaknesses, which is crucial
Speaker 2: when you're sitting next to somebody, you know, particularly when
Speaker 2: there's a camera on you, because you want to cover
Speaker 2: for each other.
Speaker 1: Correct. So, given that,
Speaker 1: Things were not quite like that off-air. I mean, you
Speaker 1: weren't fighting, but it just wasn't as close as it seemed.
Speaker 1: What do you say to the people who go, Oh,
Speaker 1: were you, were you faking it? Was everything on air fake?
Speaker 2: No, because journalistically, we respected each other enormously, and our
Speaker 2: job was not to sit there as Arthur and Martha and,
Speaker 2: you know, mum and dad, and, you know, just pretend
Speaker 2: that we were,
Speaker 2: A couple, yeah, because we were there as professionals, and
Speaker 2: you know, to be a professional journalist, you are presenting
Speaker 2: the news, but also, yes, there's lighter segments, I mean there,
Speaker 2: there's those videos on YouTube called the Today Show funny bits,
Speaker 2: and I think there's something like 100 episodes of it,
Speaker 2: and occasionally I'll go on YouTube for something,
Speaker 2: And you know how YouTube decides what you're probably gonna
Speaker 2: be interested in next, it's amazing how often the Today
Speaker 2: Show funny bits come up, and in writing the book,
Speaker 2: you know, a few times I've gone down that rabbit hole.
Speaker 2: And I look at some of those videos and there
Speaker 2: was so much joy in sitting next to Carl because
Speaker 2: we could really make each other laugh, we could really
Speaker 2: surprise each other sometimes, and there is so much about
Speaker 2: that on-air relationship that I feel so grateful for.
Speaker 2: There were also times, you know, when we'd be doing
Speaker 2: political interviews, and we were doing them solo and Carl
Speaker 2: would pass me a note and say, ask this, or
Speaker 2: I would pass him a note and say pass this.
Speaker 1: So, I watched you on set a lot when I
Speaker 1: used to come on the Today Show and, you know,
Speaker 1: off-air and on air and in between the commercial breaks
Speaker 1: and everything, and you knew each other so well, like
Speaker 1: watching a doubles match or something, you know, like two
Speaker 1: people who just,
Speaker 1: Move so effortlessly.
Speaker 1: You write in the book about when you got married,
Speaker 1: you know, there were some moments where you felt really
Speaker 1: let down by him. So when you and Pete decided
Speaker 1: to renew your vows and he RSVP late, or the
Speaker 1: rumors were that he was having his vasectomy reversed in
Speaker 1: LA and he didn't turn up and he didn't, or
Speaker 1: he said he was gonna come and then two days
Speaker 1: later he canceled.
Speaker 1: What struck me reading that is that you didn't confront
Speaker 1: him about anything, about when you read about, oh, he's
Speaker 1: been negotiating with Channel 7 about maybe moving or getting
Speaker 1: off the Today Show. He didn't, you know, come to
Speaker 1: the wedding, and he was quite cavalier about that.
Speaker 1: You never sort of said.
Speaker 1: Hey, I was pretty pissed off with you, or I
Speaker 1: was pretty upset, or why am I reading this in
Speaker 1: the paper? Was that just not the relationship
Speaker 2: you had? In writing the book, I really wondered why
Speaker 2: I didn't do that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: cos you're not a wallflower.
Speaker 2: No, I'm not.
Speaker 1: Listen to what you said to Kerry Packer.
Speaker 2: I've had to really examine why I did that. I
Speaker 2: think part of my problem, and I'm sure a lot
Speaker 2: of women listening to this will recognize it.
Speaker 2: We can tend as women to want to be the peacemaker,
Speaker 2: to be the one that sort of stills the troubled waters.
Speaker 2: And I was also very aware that I could have
Speaker 2: agitated a lot more than I did, and I could've
Speaker 2: questioned a lot more, but I always felt that if
Speaker 2: I did, it would muck up our chemistry.
Speaker 1: And yet he didn't feel that way.
Speaker 2: I don't know, you'd have to ask him.
Speaker 2: Over the years, there were a few tensions on set,
Speaker 2: not necessarily between Carl and me. There were others on
Speaker 2: the team, and there were times when I felt like
Speaker 2: the meat in the sandwich where I had to calm
Speaker 2: things down before we came back from a commercial break,
Speaker 2: and we got through it.
Speaker 2: And in the end, my loyalty was always to the audience.
Speaker 2: I had my relationships with the team and you know
Speaker 2: both on air and off-air, but my loyalty every single
Speaker 2: day when I walked into that studio,
Speaker 2: It was twofold. First of all, it was to the
Speaker 2: audience and my profession as a journalist to do the
Speaker 2: best possible job as we presented the news every day.
Speaker 2: It also goes back to the very first day that
Speaker 2: I was ever on TV sitting at a desk, and
Speaker 2: that was when I did Beauty and the Beast, and
Speaker 2: that was when I went on maternity leave. For starters,
Speaker 2: I thought, how weird that I would,
Speaker 2: Get this opportunity to work on television because it was
Speaker 2: only for 13 weeks I think we were doing this show,
Speaker 2: Beauty and the Beast, and it was Foxtel which had
Speaker 2: only just started, so no one was watching anyway, so
Speaker 2: it wasn't really much of a test, but on that
Speaker 2: very first day when I walked in, I was sitting,
Speaker 2: The idea behind Beauty and the Beast was there was
Speaker 2: one guy sitting in the middle who was meant to
Speaker 2: be the sort of misogynistic agitator as he read out
Speaker 2: letters from viewers to four women sitting
Speaker 2: at
Speaker 1: deliberately controversial
Speaker 2: and
Speaker 2: deliberately or solve my dilemma, you know, I've just discovered
Speaker 2: that my brother's sleeping with my, you know, sister-in-law and whatever.
Speaker 2: When I sat down at the desk that day, I
Speaker 2: was with 3 women, including Jennie Little. Between them I
Speaker 2: think they had something like 60 years of experience in television.
Speaker 2: I had exactly 0.
Speaker 2: And I was sitting next to a guy called Stan Zamani,
Speaker 2: who was a late night shock jock on AM radio
Speaker 2: at the time, and the head of Foxtel came out and,
Speaker 2: you know, obviously there to pump us all up and
Speaker 2: said to us, how are we all feeling? And the
Speaker 2: other three women were beside themselves with joy, and Stan
Speaker 2: and I said nothing.
Speaker 2: And Brian came over to us and he said,
Speaker 2: What the hell's wrong with you two, and almost in unison,
Speaker 2: Stan and I, you know, felt this brotherly, sisterly relationship
Speaker 2: as absolute, you know, novices in television, and almost in
Speaker 2: unison we said, we've never done this before. We have
Speaker 2: no clue what we're meant to do now. And it
Speaker 2: was another OFFS moment in my life because he said,
Speaker 2: for fuck's sake, get over yourself, it's only television.
Speaker 2: And it was such a wake-up call to me. It's
Speaker 2: just like, I'm not curing cancer here. None of us
Speaker 2: are curing cancer. We're hoping to entertain some people, maybe
Speaker 2: have some intelligent conversations
Speaker 1: with their cornflakes, looking for their socks. Totally.
Speaker 2: Totally. And so, that was my first time of ever
Speaker 2: looking down the barrel of a camera and trying to
Speaker 2: pretend that that black hole is one person that I
Speaker 2: can connect with. And so,
Speaker 2: Brian taught me also the lesson of approach every show
Speaker 2: as if it is your last.
Speaker 2: Working in television is something that very few people get
Speaker 2: to do and if you enjoy it, and as a journalist,
Speaker 2: if you feel the enormous privilege of what you're getting
Speaker 2: to do, I mean the fact that I get to
Speaker 2: interview prime ministers, like, who gets to do that? Who
Speaker 2: gets to hold politicians to account, and so, you know,
Speaker 2: particularly every day on the Today Show, when I walked
Speaker 2: in that studio,
Speaker 2: I presumed that today was gonna be the last day
Speaker 2: and that someone was gonna tap me on the shoulder
Speaker 2: and blow me down if somebody did.
Speaker 1: I'm Mia Freedman and you're listening to part two of
Speaker 1: my conversation with Lisa Wilkinson.
Speaker 1: I wanna ask you, when you found out that Carl
Speaker 1: was being paid so much more than you to do
Speaker 1: the same job.
Speaker 2: That was, that was, I.
Speaker 2: Somebody contacted me who'd been
Speaker 2: Involved in the negotiations, his negotiations, in Carl's negotiations with
Speaker 2: Channel Seven, and there was no reason to question this person.
Speaker 1: Because Carl was planning to maybe leave Channel 9 and
Speaker 1: go to Channel 7. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And he was the master. I mean, you talk about
Speaker 2: Donald Trump's The Art of the Deal. He was brilliant
Speaker 2: at it. I take my hat off to him because
Speaker 2: there's a lot of what goes on in television that
Speaker 2: involves bullshit, let's face it. You know, there's a lot
Speaker 2: of the stuff behind the scenes, and I've somehow, you know,
Speaker 2: who knows how I've managed to survive in that environment by,
Speaker 2: Making sure that I've followed a
Speaker 2: A set of personal values and a moral code that
Speaker 2: I'm comfortable with, because there's a lot that can go
Speaker 2: on behind the scenes that I'm not comfortable with, and
Speaker 2: I stay away from, but when it came to negotiations
Speaker 2: with other networks,
Speaker 2: And with the network that Carl works for, he was brilliant.
Speaker 2: And it was,
Speaker 2: Almost entertaining to watch, he was so good at it.
Speaker 1: He played
Speaker 1: the game very well. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and,
Speaker 1: and to his credit, to his credit, but obviously finding
Speaker 1: out that you weren't being paid the same or anywhere
Speaker 1: near the same as him, you then asked for not
Speaker 1: even parity, but something closer to parity than you had.
Speaker 1: You were then in the supermarket, negotiations were dragging on,
Speaker 1: you write in the book, you were in the supermarket.
Speaker 1: In the tuna aisle, holding a can of tuna, when
Speaker 1: you get a phone call from your agent to say
Speaker 1: that it's over, that they've said they're not renewing your
Speaker 1: contract and the negotiations are dead.
Speaker 1: What brand of tuna
Speaker 1: was it?
Speaker 2: John West, basil and oven dried tomato. And
Speaker 1: what was the emotion that you felt, what was the
Speaker 1: first emotion that you felt when Nick, your agent, told
Speaker 1: you that?
Speaker 2: Uh,
Speaker 2: oh, shock.
Speaker 1: Did you feel humiliated?
Speaker 2: Oh, all of the emotions just cascaded out. No, I
Speaker 2: didn't get to anger. No. Took me a while to
Speaker 2: get to anger. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Uh
Speaker 2: So what had happened was I'd been negotiating for
Speaker 2: Most of that year.
Speaker 2: For my contract renewal.
Speaker 2: And I'd made it clear that because I'd had the
Speaker 2: absolute detail of what Carl was on, and I don't
Speaker 2: take anything away from him, I want to make that
Speaker 2: absolutely clear. If he could negotiate a deal like that,
Speaker 2: good for him.
Speaker 2: But
Speaker 2: The breakfast TV market is a really lucrative market, and
Speaker 2: we had taken that show together.
Speaker 2: In the space of 10 years to number one.
Speaker 2: Coming from a place where, you know,
Speaker 2: That job that I took on was a bit of
Speaker 2: a poisoned chalice.
Speaker 2: And I felt it was about time that the spoils
Speaker 2: got shared around a little more equitably.
Speaker 2: And
Speaker 2: We'd had 3 attempts to speak to the head of
Speaker 2: Channel 9 about.
Speaker 2: How we maneuver closer to something that feels.
Speaker 2: Fair
Speaker 2: And they'd actually put an offer on the table.
Speaker 2: And I went off and Pete and I got remarried,
Speaker 2: and I was first day back at the desk.
Speaker 2: And I did the show.
Speaker 2: And that afternoon, as I always did, I did the
Speaker 2: afternoon conference call with all of the main producers and
Speaker 2: the executive producer.
Speaker 2: So that I knew what was on the next day's show.
Speaker 2: And I'd actually been trying to get in touch with
Speaker 2: my executive producer for 4 or 5 days because I
Speaker 2: discovered while I was away on our second honeymoon, that
Speaker 2: I had been cut from the upfronts, which is the
Speaker 2: annual presentation that every network and every major media organization
Speaker 2: does to the advertising industry to say, look at this
Speaker 2: suite of fabulous shows and talent that we've got
Speaker 1: for you, um.
Speaker 1: Loved and most valued talent prominently on display,
Speaker 2: yeah, and a few months, or maybe a month or
Speaker 2: so before, I'd found out that the role that Karl
Speaker 2: and I always played in the upfronts wasn't gonna be
Speaker 2: happening this year, and that Georgie was doing it with Karl.
Speaker 2: And I approached both Carl and Georgie and said, do
Speaker 2: you know, do you know what's going on here?
Speaker 2: And they both sort of dismissed it and said, oh,
Speaker 2: you know, oh, I don't know, I'm just, no, don't know.
Speaker 2: And I thought, oh, that's OK. The timing of that's
Speaker 2: actually really unfortunate because that's when Pete and I are
Speaker 2: gonna be away on our second honeymoon, and every year
Speaker 2: you're told you have to be at these upfronts because,
Speaker 2: you know,
Speaker 1: you've gotta schmooze with advertisers. All
Speaker 2: holidays
Speaker 2: get canceled.
Speaker 2: And anyway, I asked, is there any chance I can
Speaker 2: still go away, I'll fly back and do the upfront
Speaker 2: in the middle of this week off.
Speaker 2: And I was told by the head of Channel 90 no,
Speaker 2: don't you worry, you just go off and have your holiday,
Speaker 2: it'll be fine. Did you feel a bit sick? I
Speaker 2: was so excited about.
Speaker 2: All of our beautiful friends and family, including your gorgeous self,
Speaker 2: being there, because none of you knew that we were
Speaker 2: getting married again. We were just saying to all the
Speaker 2: people who have been such a support to us.
Speaker 1: It was just gonna be like a celebration, wasn't it?
Speaker 1: And then you renewed your
Speaker 1: vows.
Speaker 2: It was while I was away that I got calls
Speaker 2: from mates at Channel Nine who said, why weren't you
Speaker 2: in the upfronts? And I said, no, don't be silly.
Speaker 2: I know I wasn't hosting, but I spent a morning
Speaker 2: filming in the car park for something that was gonna
Speaker 2: be slotted in along with all the other people who
Speaker 2: couldn't be there for the big event. They sent me
Speaker 2: the link to the video and I was definitely not
Speaker 2: in the video.
Speaker 2: And I'd been ringing my executive producer for days trying
Speaker 2: to find out what was going on.
Speaker 2: And he wouldn't get back to me.
Speaker 2: When I got on the conference call,
Speaker 2: I said to my executive producer Mark, Mark, did you
Speaker 2: get all my messages? I've been waiting to hear from you.
Speaker 2: And he said, oh no, I didn't, I must have
Speaker 2: missed them. Look, come on, we've got to do the
Speaker 2: rest of the call. He said nothing.
Speaker 2: And I'd literally just hung up from the conference call
Speaker 2: when Nick, my manager called me.
Speaker 1: So no
Speaker 1: one at Channel Nine even called to tell you that
Speaker 1: you were axed.
Speaker 2: Never.
Speaker 2: I've never heard from any of them.
Speaker 1: And why would they not let you back on air
Speaker 1: the next day to say goodbye? Why did they treat
Speaker 1: you like some kind of criminal and disrespect the Today
Speaker 1: Show fans and not allow you to come back and
Speaker 1: say goodbye? What was their reasoning?
Speaker 2: I
Speaker 2: was never told, so I can only guess. What
Speaker 1: did they think you were gonna
Speaker 1: do?
Speaker 2: I have no clue, you would have to ask them that.
Speaker 2: I think they were trying to make an example of me,
Speaker 2: because there had been talk about the big gender pay
Speaker 2: gap that existed at the Today Show desk. There'd been
Speaker 2: a lot of talk about it. Charlie Pickering had asked
Speaker 2: me about it on his show.
Speaker 2: And I had to do a lot of,
Speaker 2: I was a duck, and I was paddling real hard
Speaker 2: under the
Speaker 1: throw your employer under the bus, but you also didn't
Speaker 1: wanna lie,
Speaker 2: but I also didn't wanna throw Karl under the bus,
Speaker 2: so I had to kind of say, look,
Speaker 2: I don't really know what Carl's on, but he doesn't
Speaker 2: really know what I'm on, and of course Charlie Pickering
Speaker 2: said to me, I call bullshit.
Speaker 2: Awkward. So there were a lot of headlines about the
Speaker 2: gender pay
Speaker 2: gap.
Speaker 1: You think it was like, don't any of you get
Speaker 1: too
Speaker 1: bolshy. Well,
Speaker 2: it's a good way to scare other women off who
Speaker 2: might be asking for a pay rise.
Speaker 2: And I'm not the first, and I'm not the only
Speaker 2: industry where that stuff happens, but you know, if you
Speaker 2: If you start to
Speaker 2: Think maybe I'm worth more to my employer than.
Speaker 2: Than they do, that's when you start thinking,
Speaker 2: Do I really want to be here anymore, and quite bizarrely,
Speaker 2: Just 4 weeks before I'd been approached by the project, and,
Speaker 2: Again, Channel 9 had no clue.
Speaker 2: That I've been approached by Channel 10. So, that was
Speaker 2: just something that I had in my back pocket, and
Speaker 2: I'd been questioning for a couple of months, whether I
Speaker 2: was still happy there, and I still don't know where
Speaker 2: I was going to go with the fact that there
Speaker 2: was an offer on the table, and Nick had said
Speaker 2: to me while I was away,
Speaker 2: This offer from Channel 10 is sitting here. They really, really,
Speaker 2: really want you.
Speaker 2: There's an offer from Channel 9 as well, what do
Speaker 2: you want to do? And I couldn't decide, and I
Speaker 2: was so confused by Carl not contacting me after he
Speaker 2: didn't turn up at the wedding, and I was so
Speaker 2: confused that my executive producer wouldn't speak to me.
Speaker 2: And I said to Nick, I think I just need
Speaker 2: to go to work on Monday and decide how I feel.
Speaker 2: And I went to work on Monday and something.
Speaker 2: A couple of weird things happened.
Speaker 2: Carl never said anything about the fact that he didn't
Speaker 2: turn up at the wedding.
Speaker 2: Until the cameras went on.
Speaker 2: And I had a moment of thinking.
Speaker 2: Right, so this is actually just a relationship for the cameras.
Speaker 2: He never texted me, he never said congratulations, he texted
Speaker 2: Pete and said we're not coming, but he never texted me.
Speaker 2: And I was trying to compute all of that because
Speaker 2: I never understood.
Speaker 2: Why he wouldn't talk to me.
Speaker 2: And
Speaker 2: That morning
Speaker 2: The only congratulations I got was when we started the
Speaker 2: show at 5:30.
Speaker 2: And I was, I was furious.
Speaker 2: Cos I also felt a bit foolish, cos I just thought.
Speaker 2: I don't even know what this relationship is. I don't.
Speaker 2: This is purely just a relationship for the cameras.
Speaker 2: And I couldn't talk to him for 2 hours, apart
Speaker 2: from what was scripted, I just couldn't talk to him.
Speaker 2: For the first time in over a decade, I didn't
Speaker 2: trust myself that I was gonna play nice.
Speaker 2: And so I chatted to Sylvia, who'd also been at
Speaker 2: the wedding and who remains a good friend.
Speaker 2: But then I got to 7:30.
Speaker 2: And I remember the promise I'd always made to myself.
Speaker 2: That I would do every show as if it was
Speaker 2: my last.
Speaker 2: Because part of the problem also was the rundown for
Speaker 2: that day was really weird. Almost every interview was being
Speaker 2: done by Carl on his own. I got the girls chat.
Speaker 2: At 8:40
Speaker 2: And I ended up sending an email to both Pete
Speaker 2: and Nick, my manager, and said there's something really weird
Speaker 2: going on.
Speaker 2: I've just come off a show that's gone from being
Speaker 2: the Today Show to being the Carl Show, and I
Speaker 2: don't even know where I fit in here anymore, I mean,
Speaker 2: what is this, the 1960s?
Speaker 2: And then that afternoon, got the phone call from Nick,
Speaker 2: and he said um he'd just come from the head
Speaker 2: of Channel Nine's office.
Speaker 2: And I said, oh, how did it go, because I
Speaker 2: knew that he was having a conversation with him that afternoon.
Speaker 2: And he said, you're off the show.
Speaker 2: And I said to him, off what show?
Speaker 2: And he said the Today Show.
Speaker 2: You're never to appear again.
Speaker 2: And I was literally
Speaker 2: I was deciding between the, the lemon vinaigrette can of
Speaker 2: tuna and the oven dried tomato can of tuna.
Speaker 2: I had a moment where I thought,
Speaker 2: I know I just heard that.
Speaker 2: But did that just come over the loudspeaker?
Speaker 2: Like, is everybody who's wandering around this supermarket right now,
Speaker 2: did they hear that as well?
Speaker 1: Oh, you felt so vulnerable and exposed.
Speaker 2: I felt.
Speaker 2: I felt really.
Speaker 2: First of all, it was shock.
Speaker 2: And then it was.
Speaker 2: Humiliation.
Speaker 2: And then it was.
Speaker 2: Thinking
Speaker 2: Wow
Speaker 2: All those moments when I didn't go to the kids'
Speaker 2: school concerts because I had work things going on. All
Speaker 2: those birthdays because we were on the road for our
Speaker 2: We Love Australia tours, all those wedding anniversaries that I
Speaker 2: missed because I was, you know, somewhere in outback New
Speaker 2: South Wales. All those times when I was grumpy because
Speaker 2: I wasn't getting enough sleep.
Speaker 2: When it came to loyalty to the show, I don't
Speaker 2: think anybody had the loyalty to that show the way
Speaker 2: that I did.
Speaker 2: And yet
Speaker 2: And I know I was paid well. I don't for
Speaker 2: a moment want anybody to feel sorry for me in
Speaker 2: that way, because I was paid well.
Speaker 2: But the loyalty that I had to that show was
Speaker 2: not reciprocated by the person that was running Channel 9
Speaker 2: at that time, that counted for nothing.
Speaker 2: I had to grow up really quickly, and I had
Speaker 2: to sort of remind myself.
Speaker 2: It's only the television.
Speaker 2: And
Speaker 2: I remember driving home and thinking, cos I tried to
Speaker 2: call Pete and his phone went straight to voicemail.
Speaker 2: And then I thought, oh, I'll call Carl.
Speaker 2: And then I thought,
Speaker 2: Is that why you didn't come to the wedding?
Speaker 2: Is that why he never texted me?
Speaker 2: Is that why the show this morning, because remember, you know,
Speaker 2: Carl's the guy that wore the same suit for a
Speaker 2: year because he didn't like, he said, the way that
Speaker 2: women in television were treated, and yet, why didn't he
Speaker 2: question the rundown that morning?
Speaker 2: That was so Carl heavy, it was just the Carl
Speaker 2: show that morning. Like why didn't he stand up and
Speaker 2: say something?
Speaker 2: And then I thought, does my executive producer know that
Speaker 2: I've just been sacked?
Speaker 2: Oh, hang on
Speaker 2: Is that why he didn't return my calls? Is that
Speaker 2: why he wouldn't come down on set that morning?
Speaker 2: Because, you know, and I'd questioned him, I'd, on the
Speaker 2: internal messaging system, I'd sent a message to him, you know,
Speaker 2: what's going on with the rundown, why I'm hardly in here?
Speaker 2: Is this a mistake? And all I got back was,
Speaker 2: it's not a mistake.
Speaker 2: And I waited about 5 minutes because that kind of
Speaker 2: chilled me to the bone.
Speaker 2: Cos I was thinking I don't, I don't know what's
Speaker 2: happening here, and I messaged him again and I said
Speaker 2: can I see you after the show, and I got
Speaker 2: no response.
Speaker 2: And I went upstairs to see him. He wasn't there.
Speaker 2: He was normally running a 9:30 meeting, didn't turn up
Speaker 2: for that, no one knew where he was.
Speaker 1: How do you get closure on all of this? Did
Speaker 1: you ever have it out with
Speaker 2: Carl? I insisted that we go to lunch two weeks afterwards.
Speaker 2: Did he call
Speaker 1: you that night? I can't remember. Well,
Speaker 2: you were there that night,
Speaker 1: but I can't remember that night that.
Speaker 1: I just heard on the radio, I think that you
Speaker 1: were leaving the Today Show cos they just put the
Speaker 1: press release out straight away, didn't they? It all happened
Speaker 1: quite
Speaker 1: quickly.
Speaker 2: No, no, you turned up cos I think Billy told you.
Speaker 1: No, I
Speaker 1: heard it on the radio.
Speaker 1: Lisa Wilkinson has left the Today Show.
Speaker 2: Were you there
Speaker 2: that late in the piece,
Speaker 2: were you?
Speaker 1: It's all a blur. I can't, unless I got a
Speaker 1: text from Pete, I don't know. Ah, you got a
Speaker 1: text from I got a text from Pete. Because
Speaker 2: he
Speaker 2: texted all of my closest girlfriends to, to let them
Speaker 2: know what was
Speaker 2: about to hit that
Speaker 1: cause then I grabbed some champagne because then he said,
Speaker 1: also the project because it had all happened within about
Speaker 1: 20 minutes. She's going to 10, and so I just
Speaker 1: grabbed some champagne, got in the car.
Speaker 1: And then it all just unfolded, kind of in slow
Speaker 1: motion that night. It was, you know, I was so
Speaker 1: worried about you, you were sort of in shock. You
Speaker 1: still had your makeup on from the show that morning.
Speaker 1: I don't even remember what there was no tuna in sight,
Speaker 1: that's for sure. Um, I think someone ordered pizza, I
Speaker 1: can't remember. The tuna
Speaker 2: was put back on the shelf along with the toilet
Speaker 2: paper.
Speaker 1: I was in my pajamas and I'm trying to remember
Speaker 1: your phone was blowing up and I'm trying to remember
Speaker 1: if Carl called you that night.
Speaker 2: To be honest, there were so many messages from people, texts, everything.
Speaker 2: That even in more recent times, in writing the book,
Speaker 2: I've gone to text people to check facts with them,
Speaker 2: and I've found that they sent me a message that
Speaker 2: night that I hadn't
Speaker 2: seen.
Speaker 1: I remember you stepped outside to speak to Carrie Bickmore
Speaker 1: to welcome you and Carrie
Speaker 2: and Wali called me that night. And so far, and
Speaker 2: the executive producer of Sunrise rang, Michael Pell, to thank me.
Speaker 1: But so you called Carl and said, let's go to lunch.
Speaker 1: Two weeks later.
Speaker 2: To be honest, I can't remember who contacted who, but,
Speaker 2: It took a little while for the lunch to happen.
Speaker 2: I was so happy to be going to the project.
Speaker 2: I was beyond thrilled to be going to the project.
Speaker 2: I mean, that was such an important step in the
Speaker 2: right direction for me. I was sad about the,
Speaker 2: um,
Speaker 1: the fact that they smeared you as you walked out
Speaker 1: the door at Channel 9. Were you sad about that?
Speaker 1: I was pretty fucking enraged about that. Well,
Speaker 2: you know, a lot of that, I've only seen in
Speaker 2: recent times. Again, in writing.
Speaker 2: The book, I've had to go back and read what
Speaker 2: was being put out
Speaker 1: there at the time. They painted you out as being greedy.
Speaker 2: I do
Speaker 2: know that 9 producers were gonna be sacked.
Speaker 1: They said, if we'd have paid her what she wanted,
Speaker 1: we would have had to sack 9 or 10 producers,
Speaker 1: which was never said about Kyle's salary. And the other
Speaker 1: thing that was said by the head of Channel 9
Speaker 1: at the time was, I've got 7 or 8 women
Speaker 1: who can sit in that chair tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Which
Speaker 1: Putting you to one side, the level of disrespect that
Speaker 1: it showed.
Speaker 1: The Today Show audience, it treated you as so incidental,
Speaker 1: and what came after this, and I can say this,
Speaker 1: you don't have to, but when the Today Show ratings
Speaker 1: fell in a heap,
Speaker 1: And the next thing that incensed me was how all
Speaker 1: these TV critics and media journalists were writing about, was
Speaker 1: it Kyle's marriage breakdown that caused people to leave the
Speaker 1: Today Show and move to Sunrise. And it's like, nobody
Speaker 1: pinpointed the fact that ratings collapsed after you left. After
Speaker 1: you left in such an undignified, rude, unfair, unjust way,
Speaker 1: without explanation in the dead of the night.
Speaker 1: That's when ratings tanked.
Speaker 1: That's not a question, that's just a comment.
Speaker 1: Would you like me to write an addendum in your
Speaker 1: book?
Speaker 2: Tony Jones on Q&A?
Speaker 1: Exactly. I'm giving myself a comment. How do you heal
Speaker 1: from that? Closure is such a cliched word, but how
Speaker 1: do you process all of that when it happens in
Speaker 1: such a shock, and it must have triggered a whole
Speaker 1: lot of things about bullying and a million different things
Speaker 1: for you?
Speaker 2: I just had to make peace with it.
Speaker 1: Therapy?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 2: No, no, not at all. I um.
Speaker 2: I just had to make peace with it and be
Speaker 2: realistic about it's television, yeah, and, again, I earn a
Speaker 2: good wage, I can't complain too much about,
Speaker 2: What happened, because, you know, a lot of television is
Speaker 2: a crapshoot.
Speaker 2: You know, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.
Speaker 2: It so happened that at the time,
Speaker 2: That I left, the gender pay gap was a real
Speaker 2: issue that was starting to open up wide for a
Speaker 2: lot of women, and a lot of industries were having
Speaker 2: to address it, and they were having to look at
Speaker 2: the skeletons in their own closet. So I think the
Speaker 2: timing of it was really unfortunate for Channel Nine and
Speaker 2: even more surprising because it was such a, a big
Speaker 2: talking point.
Speaker 2: And
Speaker 2: In terms of getting closure, there is nothing like moving
Speaker 2: on to something that brings you enormous joy and to
Speaker 2: be working with colleagues, the caliber of Walid and Carrie
Speaker 2: and Pete Hellier and Hamish McDonald and to be working
Speaker 2: with an extraordinary group of producers, you know,
Speaker 1: feeling appreciated.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the Walkley Award winners and you know, just,
Speaker 2: Amazing people, and it was about going to something brand
Speaker 2: new where I could learn a whole new lot of
Speaker 2: skills because the project is very different to the Today
Speaker 2: Show and I finally was gonna get to go out
Speaker 2: and do long form interviews and get my teeth into
Speaker 2: really meaty stories because breakfast TV absolutely has its place.
Speaker 2: But if it doesn't fit into 3 minutes then probably
Speaker 2: won't get to address it. Whereas on the project, you know,
Speaker 2: I can do something like Brittany Higgins that, that goes
Speaker 2: for half an hour. And I never got those opportunities
Speaker 2: at 9, and for whatever reason, 9 obviously decided that
Speaker 2: I didn't fit their mold or their brand or, you know, yeah,
Speaker 2: I wasn't Carl. So, you know, I got treated differently,
Speaker 2: but that's OK because I,
Speaker 2: will forever be grateful to David Gyngell, at 9, who
Speaker 2: was my great champion there.
Speaker 2: And there were so many good people that I worked
Speaker 2: with and particularly young producers and Tom Malone, who was my,
Speaker 2: who remains one of my closest friends, who was my
Speaker 2: first executive producer there for the 1st 6 years. I mean,
Speaker 2: he taught me more than just about anybody I've ever
Speaker 2: worked with. So I walk away having had incredible experiences
Speaker 2: and with a couple of really significant friendships that remain
Speaker 2: to this day. Who remains?
Speaker 2: I won't give them up because it probably makes it
Speaker 2: easier for them, because I don't, I think there's a
Speaker 2: legacy that I've got at Channel Nine that,
Speaker 2: That, so I, I,
Speaker 1: I'll give you
Speaker 1: an example if you said who your close friends are
Speaker 1: still at 9, it could make things difficult for them.
Speaker 1: Yes. My last question.
Speaker 1: Is not about TV it's about.
Speaker 1: You were an editor at 21. You were the youngest
Speaker 1: ever editor before or since, I think, of a mainstream magazine.
Speaker 1: Not that there's many magazines left now, but I became
Speaker 1: an editor at 25, and I thought that was really old, because,
Speaker 1: how funny is that? Because you did it at 21.
Speaker 1: I was the youngest editor of Cosmo at the time. Anyway,
Speaker 1: you and I have both been the youngest in the room.
Speaker 1: We're not the youngest in the room anymore, Lisa, we'll
Speaker 1: consider ain't. I'm the oldest here at Mamma Mia. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you're the oldest at the project, but.
Speaker 2: Um, I probably am.
Speaker 2: I love it when Barry Cassidy comes in. That's right.
Speaker 1: A bit of crusty Barry to make you feel youthful.
Speaker 1: How have you felt about milestone birthdays in an industry
Speaker 1: that really judges women by how they look, and not
Speaker 1: just TV but just being a woman in the public eye,
Speaker 1: it's very hard to get older.
Speaker 2: I've never found that.
Speaker 1: I
Speaker 2: mean,
Speaker 1: I tell me more about that.
Speaker 2: Well, I joined the Today Show in my late 40s, so.
Speaker 2: Age doesn't mean anything to me other than how bloody
Speaker 2: lucky am I to keep having birthdays. Yeah. Because we
Speaker 2: all know too many women who don't get that option,
Speaker 2: and I approach every year with nothing but gratitude that
Speaker 2: I'm still here.
Speaker 2: I'm still, you know, loving what I get to do
Speaker 2: for work. I still adore my husband, I have 3
Speaker 2: healthy kids. I have nothing to complain about, but I
Speaker 2: have an incredibly rich tapestry of life experience.
Speaker 2: And that was the reason why I wrote the book.
Speaker 2: It wasn't meant to be like this. When I was
Speaker 2: growing up in the 60s, you know, girls, when they
Speaker 2: got married, which was around about the age of 23,
Speaker 2: and by 30 you'd probably have a few kids under
Speaker 2: the belt, and really your life's mission.
Speaker 2: Was not over, but it was certainly preset at that
Speaker 2: stage because your job was to bring up the kids,
Speaker 2: and when you got to about 50, and you can
Speaker 2: no longer reproduce and you can no longer, you know,
Speaker 2: employment would have been really difficult, you know, here I
Speaker 2: am at this age, still doing something that I absolutely love.
Speaker 2: It's just like I am so incredibly lucky.
Speaker 2: And if I don't put down all of the incredible
Speaker 2: things that have happened to me and all of those,
Speaker 2: Huge disappointments that have also happened to me and how
Speaker 2: I've just decided I'm just gonna pick myself up and
Speaker 2: I'm gonna keep going, and in many ways those girls
Speaker 2: that bullied me at school,
Speaker 2: Allowed me to teach myself resilience, that,
Speaker 2: If you don't define yourself by the way others look
Speaker 2: at you, then you're halfway to a happy life. Because
Speaker 2: we've all got to find it within ourselves, our day
Speaker 2: to day happiness, because we're the only ones living this life.
Speaker 2: I just believe in choosing happiness wherever I can find it.
Speaker 2: Being surrounded by people that I genuinely know value me
Speaker 2: and love me.
Speaker 2: It's interesting how you get a bit more choosy, the
Speaker 2: older you get. You understand the things in life that really,
Speaker 2: truly matter, and you make sure that you're living every
Speaker 2: day with purpose and with gratitude and,
Speaker 2: You know, if you can take on board new teachings.
Speaker 2: That's an incredible thing. I want to be an amazing
Speaker 2: 90 year old.
Speaker 2: I wanna be one of those crazy 90 year olds
Speaker 1: who's like Iris Apel.
Speaker 2: Yes, I wanna jump out of planes and just do
Speaker 2: everything that 90 year olds aren't meant to do.
Speaker 1: Let's go and get a tattoo.
Speaker 2: Now that's the one thing you know I won't do. I,
Speaker 2: I was appalled when you got a tattoo when you
Speaker 2: were working I'm gonna
Speaker 1: get another one. I'm gonna get another one just to
Speaker 2: my belly button ring ever? Did the hole ever close
Speaker 2: over?
Speaker 1: No, it got infected. I had to take it out.
Speaker 1: Australia is, is a better place having you in it.
Speaker 1: Australian women are lucky to have you.
Speaker 1: In the world, making the world a better place for us.
Speaker 1: And I feel lucky to call you a friend and
Speaker 1: You know, I'm one of many, many women who owe
Speaker 1: their careers to you, and I can't thank you enough.
Speaker 2: I love you.
Speaker 2: Don't do that to me because now I'm gonna cry.
Speaker 2: Can I, can I just say in return.
Speaker 2: One of the greatest joys of my life, and the
Speaker 2: greatest privileges of my life is to have had the
Speaker 2: opportunity to pay it forward, because when you know what
Speaker 2: it is, which I discovered really early in my career,
Speaker 2: The power
Speaker 2: That comes when somebody believes in you, at a time
Speaker 2: when you don't yet necessarily believe in yourself, in fact
Speaker 2: you might feel quite the opposite, but when you know
Speaker 2: what it is to have somebody believe in you and
Speaker 2: then experience that joy and want to prove to them
Speaker 2: that that was well placed belief.
Speaker 2: To then find yourself in a position to be able
Speaker 2: to pass that joy onto other young women, cause it's
Speaker 2: mostly been women that I've worked with over the years,
Speaker 2: there's been a few, few men along the way, and
Speaker 2: I've had great experiences with male colleagues and male bosses.
Speaker 2: You know, what happened at Channel Nine has not changed
Speaker 2: my view of the great men who are out there.
Speaker 2: And early in my career, it was mostly men that
Speaker 2: were giving me the opportunities. But to see what you
Speaker 2: have done with this media company, which I remember when
Speaker 2: you started this on your lounge room floor, and to
Speaker 2: see you encouraging young women in a way that has
Speaker 2: built so many careers, that's the power of positive female energy.
Speaker 2: And, you know, every time I see you push another
Speaker 2: little bird out of the nest and encourage it to fly,
Speaker 2: I take great joy out of that.
Speaker 1: I learnt from the best.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: I could have talked to Lisa for 100 years. She
Speaker 1: does love a good conversation. She is a great person
Speaker 1: to talk to about anything. And in fact, when we
Speaker 1: left the studio, we went and sat outside in the
Speaker 1: kitchen area at Mamma Mia, and no one else is
Speaker 1: in the office at the moment. And as the sun
Speaker 1: went down, we talked for another hour, at least. And
Speaker 1: in the end, I had to say, babe, I've got
Speaker 1: to go home.
Speaker 1: There is just so much to talk about. And there
Speaker 1: were lots of things that we didn't even touch in
Speaker 1: these two episodes that you will read about in the book,
Speaker 1: about her magazine career, about her role as a mother,
Speaker 1: about having three incredible children, about her marriage. Oh, we
Speaker 1: could've done a whole other episode just talking about her
Speaker 1: marriage to Peter Fitzsimons. You know, when I interviewed Pete
Speaker 1: on this podcast a few years ago,
Speaker 1: I asked him about his marriage to Lisa, because I
Speaker 1: knew everybody would be curious about that, and he said
Speaker 1: something which ended up making national news. He said, we
Speaker 1: have 50 blissful days, 300 pretty good days, and 15 shockers.
Speaker 1: And I wanted to ask her what those shockers were like.
Speaker 1: She talks about her marriage and being married to the
Speaker 1: same man for
Speaker 1: Oh, what would it be now? Close to 30 years
Speaker 1: in the book. It is a tour de force, this book, honestly,
Speaker 1: I don't know, it spans so much. It's about magazines,
Speaker 1: it's about women, it's about generations of women in Australia.
Speaker 1: It is an epic, epic book.
Speaker 1: It wasn't meant to be like this by Lisa Wilkinson,
Speaker 1: it's published by HarperCollins and is available for pre-order now
Speaker 1: from Booktopia. We'll put a link in the show notes.
Speaker 1: The assistant producer of No Filter is Lucy Neville, the
Speaker 1: executive producer is Eliza Ratliff. I'm Mia Friedman and I'll
Speaker 1: see you on Mamma Mia.
Speaker 1: And if you're after something else to listen to, you
Speaker 1: might wanna listen to our new podcast. It's been topping
Speaker 1: the charts. It's been very, very well received. Everyone's talking
Speaker 1: about it. It's called What Are You Wearing, and it
Speaker 1: is the first podcast for your wardrobe. You can find
Speaker 1: it wherever you get your podcasts.