Erin Molan lifts lid on feud with NRL great Andrew Johns
Erin Molan was trolled online after rumours surfaced last year that she did not get along with fellow Channel 9 commentator and legend Andrew Johns. Now she has spoken about their relationship.
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Erin Molan has put to rest her rumoured feud with rugby league great Andrew Johns.
Molan and Johns’ was the subject of much speculation in 2019 when it was suggested they did not get along and the pair no longer working together on Friday night football coverage.
“Andrew Johns is an Immortal and he sees things in our game that no-one else can see,” Molan says in the latest issue of Stellar magazine, in the Sunday Telegraph this weekend.
“I have so much respect for him, as I do all the guys I work alongside.”
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Insiders at the time attributed the cooling of the relationship to Paul ‘Fatty’ Vautin being given the boot from The Footy Show.
Johns subsequently took himself off the Footy Show and disappeared from the Friday night broadcast, replaced by Billy Slater in the commentary box.
Molan was the subject of much hate on social media at the time.
“The trolling used to upset me, but now I don’t give a tinker’s cuss,” she said.
“I’ve grown up a lot and learnt a lot about myself and how the world works. I’m not going to complain because there are people around with real problems, and here I am doing a job I love and making a good living. I’m very far from perfect – but I’m very real.”
In the wide-ranging interview, Molan also clarified suggestions she and partner, Sean Ogilvy, had separated with rumours sparked by the fact she hadn’t been wearing her engagement ring.
The couple are parents to nearly two-year-old daughter, Eliza.
“Every relationship has its ups and downs, but we’re great,” she said. “We’ve got a great relationship, a great family and a great little girl. I don’t post pictures of Sean because he’s a fairly private person and that’s not the way we show affection, or the way we are committed to each other.”
Molan, 36, described Ogilvy, 44, as a “brilliant” father.
“I had to get someone older so he’d never have to upgrade me. I’d always be younger and hotter,” she joked, adding of the engagement ring: “It’s such a beautiful ring, but it’s quite high and it scratches Eliza when I’m changing her nappy. Maybe I’ll wear it again when she’s potty-trained.”
The daughter of Liberal senator Jim Molan began her career in community television before landing a job in regional TV and moving to Sydney for the Nine Network in 2010.
Molan said she pushed ahead with her favoured career option despite receiving 88 rejection letters from multiple media companies.
“I was told my voice wasn’t good enough, or my look wasn’t right, or my writing wasn’t strong enough,” she said. “But I was always willing to use rejection to drive me to be better. I had to build a fair bit of resilience, which has served me well in later years.”
Being a woman too, she said, has helped her career.
“When I got my first opportunity to do an injury report on The Footy Show, there were six or seven blokes who had more knowledge, had been covering it for longer and probably deserved it more than I did, but because I was there and I was capable, I got the opportunity,” she said. “I don’t see myself as a victim because being female has actually helped my career. The players are incredible, 99.9 per cent of them have always treated me with utmost respect, as have my colleagues. Of course, there are still people who think a woman who has never played the game shouldn’t be hosting a panel or broadcast, but I don’t know where they’re going to find a match to watch because almost all of them are now hosted by women.”
Originally published as Erin Molan lifts lid on feud with NRL great Andrew Johns