Karl ‘hurt’ unexpected Today star most
IN the wake of Karl Stefanovic’s “b**chy” 45-minute Uber phone conversation becoming public, Peter Stefanovic and Sylvia Jeffreys were conspicuously absent on the Today show desk with Georgie Gardner.
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GEORGIE Gardner worked hard to make and hold eye contact with her chastened offsider Karl Stefanovic on the Today set this morning as his comments about his co-host — recorded by an Uber car driver — were made public for the first time.
Stefanovic’s criticisms of Gardner, his Today show partner of two months, are published in New Idea magazine today after an Uber driver came forward to blab about the private phone conversation between Stefanovic and his younger brother Peter that was held on speaker phone in an Uber car also carrying Today newsreader Sylvia Jeffreys, Peter’s wife.
MORE: What Karl Stefanovic and younger brother Peter really said in the Uber
In the frank exchange Karl Stefanovic, unaware his comments would sensationally be made public, called Gardner to account for “sitting on the fence” and not having enough opinions on the program.
The Uber driver who has sold his story to the magazine further claims the older Stefanovic was angry as he vented to his brother about Gardner needing to “step up” if she “wanted to stay on the show.”
On a flat edition of the breakfast program this morning Stefanovic and Gardner were reunited for the first time since the “Uber-gate” scandal broke a week ago.
With Jeffreys uncharacteristically missing from Nine’s Willoughby studio HQ, fill-in newsreader Deb Knight was enlisted along with weather reporter Natalia Cooper to swell the team’s ranks from four regulars to six along with the main anchors and sports presenter Tim Gilbert and Wilkins.
If it was meant to buffer the historically strained relationship between Stefanovic and Gardner, it failed, though in no part due to Gardner’s decorum and grace.
Gardner worked hard to elevate the sombre onset mood and inject some light into a program focused primarily on the Tathra and Victorian fires, rising petrol prices, rising bill prices, cash giveaways, the effect of violent video games on children, online shopping for kids and — for colour — a drab segment on entertainment reporter Richard Wilkins’ fear of riding on roller-coasters.
Insiders say Gardner’s initial shock concerning “Uber-gate” had greatly subsided in the week since it first emerged an Uber driver was shopping a story to media.
“It could have been worse for Georgie,” said one Today insider who said Gardner retreated to her office last week to escape the topic.
More wounded this week, sources say, is Richard Wilkins who counts himself among Stefanovic’s closest friends. Stefanovic complained in the brotherly bitch that Wilkins monopolised his entertainment round and “kept all the entertainment contacts close to his chest”.
The notoriously sensitive Wilkins has been hurt by the sledge and he was noticeably subdued on this morning’s program.
Nine bosses — among them Today executive producer Mark Calvert, 60 Minutes executive producer Kirsty Thomson and news director Darren Wick — also came in for a serve in the Uber car.
The brothers described some executives at Nine as people who “didn’t know anything and … are out of touch”
Peter, the Today Weekend host and a 60 Minutes reporter, further complained he felt veteran Nine reporter Mark Burrows looked down on him.
Peter added he “hated his job” — one he largely owes to his older brother who opened the door for the younger man at Nine.
By Monday morning, the younger Stefanovic had been dispatched to Tathra to cover the weekend fires while his wife, Jeffreys, reported from the site of the Victorian bush fires — a strategic move say Nine sources pointing out they didn’t want Gardner to feel “surrounded” by the entire “Uber-gate” mob on the same day the Uber driver’s report was published.
