Exclusive: Jessica Rowe confesses to resenting Karl Stefanovic

Fifteen years ago, Jessica Rowe was sensationally fired from the Today Show while Karl Stefanovic’s star power continued to rise. The pair hadn’t had a proper conversation since, until today.

Jessica Rowe hadn’t had a proper conversation with her former Today co-host Karl Stefanovic since she was sensationally fired from the breakfast show while she was on maternity leave almost 15 years ago.

At the time, the journalist was being cruelly trashed in the press and widely blamed for the show’s struggles in the ratings. To exacerbate the heartache, Rowe was at the same time diagnosed with postnatal depression after giving birth to her first child, Allegra, now 14. (Rowe and her husband, Nine Network newsreader Peter Overton, also have another daughter, Giselle, 12.)

With her professional and personal life floundering, Rowe could only watch on from the sidelines as Stefanovic was able to weather the storm. Which begs the question: did she harbour any resentment towards him?

“Even though nearly 15 years have passed, there are some things that never leave you and feel unresolved.” (Picture: Steven Chee)

“Of course I did,” Rowe tells Stellar. “I mean, it’s not a healthy feeling. But it’s a human feeling.”

And that is why the mental-health advocate decided it was finally time to let some things go. Not long ago, the 51-year-old extended an olive branch to her former colleague, and invited him on to the first episode of her new podcast, The Jess Rowe Big Talk Show.

“I remember seeing Karl at an airport one year. He was walking with a bunch of people and I was walking with a bunch of people, and we just said hello, but we’d never spoken about what happened between us,” says Rowe, who first worked with Stefanovic in the Network Ten newsroom in Sydney in the late ’90s.

“I thought this [reunion on the podcast] would be a really challenging conversation for both of us – but one we needed to have. Even though nearly 15 years have passed, there are some things that never leave you and feel unresolved, even though both of us have gotten on with our lives and we are both much happier people now than we were then.”

Previous hosts of Channel Nine's 'Today Show', Jessica Rowe and Karl Stefanovic.

Although she was anxious about how the chat would evolve, Rowe need not have worried.

“Karl, to his eternal credit, was so open in that conversation. He was vulnerable and he apologised to me, which I didn’t expect. But he took responsibility for his part in it, which meant so much to me.”

During their talk, a tearful Stefanovic acknowledged that while horrible things had been written about both of them, Rowe – who was criticised for her weight, her hair and her laugh – clearly copped the brunt of it. And, he surmised, if the whole incident (particularly her being fired while on maternity leave) were to happen now, it would be an outrage.

“You didn’t have a guy next to you who could have helped you and protected you,” he says on the episode.

“I’m here to apologise to you, and I wish I’d been a better man. A stronger man. Not just for you, but for myself.”

Not surprisingly, revisiting that chapter of her life stirred up some terrible memories for Rowe.

“Most of us go through these sorts of career highs and lows. It was just that mine was so public and so cruel,” she says. But it also reminded her of her resilience, a trait that Stefanovic praised Rowe for having in spades.

“Years later, when I was going through my third and fourth wave of [criticism], I was thinking, How did Jess Rowe survive?” he tells her.

Jessica Rowe with her family. (Picture: Supplied)

Reflecting on their chat now, Rowe tells Stellar, “None of us know what we’re made of – until you go through those sorts of times when things are tough. It’s when your back is against the wall. That is when you learn what matters. Yes, it was terrible what happened and terrible that I got postnatal depression, but all of it contributed to my finally accepting I wasn’t perfect, and I started to embrace my quirkiness.”

She adds the conversation with Stefanovic helped her make peace with the fact she didn’t legally challenge the Nine Network’s position at the time.

“I didn’t have the emotional, mental or financial strength to take on Nine. And that also made me feel like a failure. Like, what message are we sending to my brand-new baby girl that as women we can’t stand up; that we aren’t able to fight?” she says.

“I realised I couldn’t fight that battle then, but that hasn’t stopped me from fighting other battles down the track.”

Rowe, who would go on to co-host Network Ten’s morning show Studio 10 until stepping away in 2018, says the positive outcome of her talk with Stefanovic aligned with the very reason she wanted to start her podcast in the first place.

Jessica Rowe features in this Sunday’s Stellar.

“I think people, especially the people in the public eye, often seem like they’ve got it all together, like they know what they’re doing. But no-one does. We are all human; none of us are perfect. Some people are just better at pretending,” she says.

“Now, more than ever, I’m interested in having real, vulnerable, honest conversations with people about what is going on in their lives, and hopefully make others feel less alone in their struggles.”

Perhaps, most importantly of all, two months on since they recorded that episode, Rowe and Stefanovic are again in regular contact.

“It’s come full circle,” she says.

“I feel at peace with that time now. And I can sort of wave it away. It will always be part of my story. But it’s not the whole lot.”

The Jess Rowe Big Talk Show launches on the LiSTNR app from today with her first guest, Karl Stefanovic.