‘This is why I left TV’: Lisa Wilkinson reveals reaction to Nine dismissal revelation

Lisa Wilkinson has revealed the surge of support she’s received since lifting the lid on her final day at Nine, while Karl Stefanovic was a no-show on Today.

Lisa Wilkinson has been inundated with calls and messages of support from friends and fellow female TV journalists after revealing the details of her controversial departure from Channel 9.

Some of those who got in touch echoed similar experiences at the hands of a workplace “boys’ club”, following the publication of a hard-hitting extract from her upcoming memoir It Wasn’t Meant to Be Like This.

“Messages saying ‘Lisa, you’ve described what happened to me last year or three years ago’,” Wilkinson said. “Or ‘Lisa, this is why I left television’.

“I tell you I am feeling quite overwhelmed at the moment.”

Back in the glory days ... Lisa Wilkinson at the Logies with co-host Karl Stefanovic and their opposite numbers at Sunrise, David ‘Kochie’ Koch and Samantha Armytage. From picture section of It Wasn't Meant To Be Like This by Lisa Wilkinson

The extract, published on Sunday, outlined Wilkinson’s agonisingly awkward last day at Nine, her bizarre final show and the shockingly blunt – and entirely unexpected – way she was dismissed after lobbying for fairer pay in alignment with that of Today co-host Karl Stefanovic.

“I know that I haven’t written a word in anger. I’ve waited four years to tell the story of what happened when I left Channel 9 because that perspective is really important,” she said.

While Nine executives spoke out in the days after her abrupt departure in 2017, Wilkinson has kept her silence until now.

Starting out ... Wilkinson and Stefanovic at their first photo shoot, just days after she joined the Today show in May 2007.

“I didn’t engage in any of that because it is not my style to go tit-for-tat, I would have …” Wilkinson shared, pausing, before adding “There’s no opportunity to be a winner when you have a public slanging match. I figured my moment to tell the truth of what happened would come eventually. And I wanted all the heat to be out of it.”

The extract related Wilkinson’s upsetting final encounter with Stefanovic, during that last morning at Today; while the book, which covers her life from childhood to stardom and her experiences in many different media roles, also addresses their differing salaries and her bid to close that gender pay gap.

“What’s out there at the moment looks like I am trying to attack Karl, but as you know in the book, that’s not what I’m doing,” she said.

“I’m just not keeping men’s secrets anymore. I think, as women, when we do that all we do is strengthen the boys’ club and we do women a disservice.

Not here Today ... David Campbell joins Ally Langdon on the Today show on Monday as Nine says Karl Stefanovic was on "planned leave" this week in the wake of Lisa Wilkinson's explosive book extract being published at the weekend Picture: Channel 9

“Because to make somebody feel diminished, you isolate them and you make them think that what they are experiencing is only theirs and theirs alone and that they can’t share that with anyone and be empowered by anyone else’s experiences.”

Meanwhile, Stefanovic was a no-show on the Today show on Monday in the wake of Wilkinson’s bombshell claims about her departure from Nine in 2017.

The TV presenter, 47, has not commented since the extract was published.

Nine said Stefanovic was on “planned leave” on Monday, and had also taken Friday off.

His absence wasn’t acknowledged at the start of Monday’s program, with Today Extra co-anchor David Campbell filling in alongside his usual co-host Allison Langdon.

Nine declined to comment on its executives’ non-response to the extracts.