Lisa Wilkinson reveals teen sexual assault for the first time

Ahead of her hotly anticipated tell-all book, Lisa Wilkinson reveals for the first time how she suffered sexual assault at the hands of a friend’s father when she was in high school.

One of the oddities of journalism in Australia is that many of its most notable practitioners end up making headlines as often as they report on them.

Such is the case of media doyenne Lisa Wilkinson, who – in this first interview with Stellar ahead of the release of her highly anticipated memoir – explains how her fame came “out of the blue”, talks about how the book gave her the space to have the final word on her dramatic exit from Today, and reveals for the first time why telling the stories of those who have survived sexual assault is so personal to her.

Meeting Brittany inspired me to tell all

Lisa Wilkinson has revealed how she was sexually assaulted by her friend’s father when in high school.

In an exclusive interview, The Project star said she didn’t plan to include the details of the event in her upcoming memoir It Wasn’t Meant To Be Like This.

But, after meeting political staffer Brittany Higgins, who she interviewed earlier this year about being all­egedly raped in Parliament House, and seeing her “incredible courage”, Wilkinson was compelled to ­include it.

“I thought, if [women] don’t come forward and don’t show how incredibly common these experiences are, then the perpetrators win. And I couldn’t be a party to that,” she said.

In the book, Wilkinson reveals how she was at a close friend’s home, waiting to be picked up by her father Ray, when her friend’s dad cornered her in a room alone.

He started stroking her breasts and then moved his hands down to rub the crotch of her jeans.

Despite initially being frozen in fear, she writes a “lightning bolt” eventually came over her, and she pushed him off and ran to her ­father, who had just arrived.

Wilkinson said she didn’t tell anyone.

“So often women weren’t believed in those days,” she said.

“It was only when women linked arms and said: ‘We are doing this together. We are not going to let women be isolated and excluded when they tell their stories’. Before there was no appetite for the ugliness but now we know how widespread the ugliness is.”

Lisa Wilkinson revealed she was sexually assaulted as a teenager.

One of the few people Wilkinson told was ­Ms Higgins.

“I told Brit­tany after our ­interview went to air,” she said.

“Women can only speak when they are ready.

“But there are more women speaking because they now know that they will be believed, they will be heard and they can seek justice.

“It’s why what is going on with Brittany is so incredibly important. Over the coming months it’s really important that women can see justice happening in real time.”

Exclusive interview with Stellar

There’s an anecdote in Lisa Wilkinson’s new memoir that covers off an incident which her husband of nearly 30 years, author Peter FitzSimons, had not even known about until he read it in print.

It happened when a teenage Wilkinson, a self-proclaimed “westie” from the suburbs of Sydney, started working at Dolly, the magazine she would end up becoming the editor of at the age of 21.

The day started with her covering a press conference with international rock band KISS and ended aboard a yacht on Sydney Harbour, where she shared an intimate moment with guitarist Ace Frehley.

“At the time I was told, ‘The guys aren’t going to have their make-up on so you’re not allowed to write about this in your magazine, Lisa.’ And I remember having the thought: Well I won’t write about it in the magazine, but I wonder if one day I will write about it,” she says through laughter as she recalls the encounter.

Wilkinson says that she decided to include the story in her book because it taught her an early lesson about the impact of fame.

“It informed a lot for me going forward,” Wilkinson tells Stellar in her first interview ahead of the already much-talked-about book’s release next month.

“I wasn’t actually going to write about that …” Picture: Carlotta Moye

“One of the peculiarities of my career is that I never set out to be famous. I never set out to have a high profile. That was never my plan.”

Which is why that highly anticipated memoir of hers is aptly called It Wasn’t Meant To Be Like This. Over nearly 500 pages, Wilkinson walks the reader through six decades of life experiences – from being born to a mother who had been rejected by her own mother, to tasting her own blood for the first time at the hands of high-school bullies, to becoming the editor of Dolly and then Cleo, and on to her decades of successful work on television.

It’s all there. As is, of course, a chapter dedicated to that day in 2017 when she seismically parted ways with the Nine Network from her role as co-host of Today, which is pointedly titled The Night Of The Long Knives … And Champagne!

While many assume the journalist and presenter was approached to write her autobiography after that now infamous event, the seed was actually planted after she gave the Andrew Olle Media Lecture in 2013, where she discussed sexism and how women in the industry are treated.

“I signed [the book deal] back then, saying, ‘I don’t think I’m going to write this for quite a while because I feel like I’ve still got a lot of living to do,’” Wilkinson explains.

“As the years have rolled by, I’ve gone through more unique experiences. So about two years ago, I thought, ‘Now’s the time to start writing.’ But never could I have predicted it would be released in a year that’s proven to be such a watershed moment for women.”

Wilkinson is referring to the cascade of movement on the women’s rights front in Australia that was sparked by political staffer Brittany Higgins’ allegation earlier this year that she had been sexually assaulted in Parliament House. (A man has pleaded not guilty to a sexual assault charge in the ACT Magistrates Court.)

As one of the first to break the story of the allegation on The Project, Wilkinson was so moved by Higgins’ bravery that she was spurred on to reveal in the book that she suffered sexual assault at the hands of a friend’s father when she was in high school.

“I wasn’t actually going to write about that and I only made that decision earlier this year after witnessing the incredible courage of Brittany,” she says, without commenting on the case before the courts. She says the traumatic revelation will come as a shock to most of her close friends.

“Those relationships I have with people do matter to me. To discover it didn’t count for others … well, there you go.” Picture: Carlotta Moye

“I thought, if [women] don’t come forward and don’t show how incredibly common these experiences are, then the perpetrators win. And I couldn’t be a party to that.”

Revisiting the many challenges in her life ultimately helped Wilkinson to better understand how they have shaped her. In an exclusive extract for Stellar (on the following page), for instance, she details her harrowing treatment at the hands of high-school bullies.

“But,” she points out, “I decided I wasn’t going to let that experience define me. I don’t know where that strength came from, but leaving school I made a promise to myself that I would never again let somebody make decisions for me about how I was going to live my life and what I was capable of achieving.”

It was a joy, however, for Wilkinson to relive so many of the wonderfully surreal moments of her life, like dinner parties with Kerry Packer, being set up by Liz Hayes with her now-husband or deciding to leave magazines after the birth of her second child Louis in 1995 (she has two other children, son Jake, 28, and daughter Billi, 24) and her subsequent break into television as a panellist on Beauty And The Beast.

“TV just came out of the blue,” she insists. “That was never in my plan. I always used to think, why would anybody want to work in TV? What a pressure-cooker, sexist place that is!”

She acknowledges, though, that for many the most compelling part of her story will be her decade-long reign as co-host of Today – and more curiously, its abrupt end.

“I needed a number of years to pass for me to be able to reflect upon that time, because it was pretty hard to live through,” she says of the fateful Monday she was told not to return to the breakfast show she had helped reach the top of the ratings.

“In writing the book, I had to go back and understand what everyone else was consuming about my story at the time. And it was quite shocking some of the narrative that was put out there by my previous employer. 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.”

“I needed a number of years to pass for me to be able to reflect upon that time, because it was pretty hard to live through.” Picture: Carlotta Moye

While she appreciated the chance to tell her side of the story, which made headline news around the world, it also brought about some realisations.

“In many ways … I’m in TV. I’m paid really well, so there’s a bit of ‘For God’s sake, Lisa, put your big girl pants on. Suck it up,’” she starts.

“But the one thing I’m guilty of is: every job I’ve ever done, I really care. I probably put more into it sometimes than I should. Those relationships I have with people do matter to me. But to discover that it didn’t sometimes count for others … well, there you go.”

After recounting the day she left Nine in her memoir (she announced that same day she would be moving to a new job with The Project on Network 10), she doesn’t mention Today co-host Karl Stefanovic in the book again. Which begs the question: what is her relationship like with him now?

“We don’t really have one,” she says. “But I wish him well. Everyone has moved on.”

Despite the way it ended, Wilkinson treasures her time on Today. “You’re in people’s homes during their rawest, unshowered, unfiltered moments, if they choose to make you part of their daily routine. And that is an extraordinary privilege. I’m sad that I never got to say a proper goodbye to the Today audience. That’s one of my great regrets. Although, it’s not a regret – because it wasn’t within my power.”

In one regard, the book is her way of saying goodbye to that audience. In another, it serves as a reminder of what happens when you lead life on our own terms, as Wilkinson set out to do after being bullied as a young girl.

“While I’m so grateful I’ve married a wonderful man, I had three healthy children and family really is everything to me, for women like me who grew up in the ’60s, those were all the options you had if you wanted to live a life of fulfilment. I’ve been fortunate to live a life where I’ve been fulfilled both professionally and personally,” Wilkinson says.

Ultimately, however, the book is a love letter to her beloved mother Beryl, who passed away at the age of 89 in 2018.

“In writing this book I really got an opportunity to think about the circumstances in which Mum grew up and the way she triumphed over her early years, but she still fought those demons every single day,” she says.

“When I got to look at the arc of my life, and [then] the arc of her life, I realised that change is happening, and there is hope. But we have to keep going – because we’re not there yet.”

Book extract

It was while in Year 9 at high school that, encouraged by her English teacher, Lisa Wilkinson first began dreaming of a career in journalism. Unfortunately, it was also that same year that she became the target of schoolyard bullies.

In this edited extract from her new book, Wilkinson recalls how, during lunchtime one day, the bullying turned physical for the first time

As I so often did in those days, I’d sought refuge in a quiet corner in the sun by the science block, out of the view of the main playground. My up-ended Globite schoolbag was performing the role of a makeshift seat, while Leanne, my friend from ballet, and a group of others were enjoying the winter sunshine beside me.

But heading across the sports field straight for me was Raelene Schroeder with six of her henchwomen on either side, including Jenny and Louise. I don’t think I’d ever felt so small or so completely powerless and vulnerable in my life, as my friends, in the path of this approaching cyclone, scattered with the wind. I didn’t blame them; what could they possibly do in the face of such a show of impending force?

Besides, it was clear this gang wasn’t coming for them, now that a gum-chewing Raelene, along with her backup crew, some of whom I didn’t even recognise, were just a few feet away from me.

“You’re a show-off little b*tch,” Raelene spat at me, as her left hand swiped across me, knocking my Vegemite sandwiches into the dirt.

Her right fist? I never saw it coming, but it now crashed into my temple with so much stinging force it sent me flying to the ground, my head only just missing the concrete corner of the building. Even as I went down, the roar of other students went up as a crowd quickly gathered. “Fight! Fight! Fight!”

Lisa Wilkinson stars on the cover of this Sunday’s Stellar.

I was now on my side, trying to curl up into the tiniest ball possible as Raelene’s knee dug into my right hip, making it impossible for me to move, blows now raining down on my head, my nose, my lips, my ears. For the first time, I tasted my own blood.

Still, Raelene’s fists continued to make contact as the roar of the baying mob grew louder and her mates screamed, “Get her, Raelene!” Even more kids raced over to witness first-hand the spectacle of two girls – or one at least – going for it, amidst dust flying, on the school grounds.

Were it not for a teacher pulling Raelene off me, I don’t know how it would have ended. This time, however, it ended in the principal’s office. Even though I stood there with splatters of blood on my uniform, my left eye beginning to swell and my brain rattled from what had just happened, we were both roundly told off for fighting.

I could have told the truth – that it wasn’t a fight but a flat-out vicious, unprovoked assault, but in my still-shocked state, with Raelene standing next to me, smirking, and not a single scratch on her, it would have taken more courage than I had.

I could have told Mum and Dad, too, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I knew it would have upset them terribly. And I didn’t want to dwell on the hurt or the humiliation. I wanted the whole thing to just go away, and for everyone to move on. Raelene had had her kill and, in the eyes of her gang, come out the victor. I hoped that would now be the end of it.

But I had to wonder: was it worth doing well at homework assignments, or even ballet, if getting beaten up like this was the result?

This is an extract from It Wasn’t Meant To Be Like This by Lisa Wilkinson

(HarperCollins, $45), out on November 3 and available for pre-order now.