Kirsten Drysdale alleges Julian Morrow drove her to tears over ‘aggressive’ call

Kirsten Drysdale claims The Chaser co-founder Julian Morrow aggressively yelled at her over the phone while she was 26 weeks pregnant.

A TV presenter has told the NSW Supreme Court that The Chaser co-founder Julian Morrow aggressively yelled at her over the phone while she was pregnant and that his behaviour was “so extreme that it caused me to become upset and to start crying”.

But Mr Morrow has denied to the court he yelled at Kirsten Drysdale and says she used an accusatory tone towards him.

Mr Morrow and veteran producer Nick Murray are locked in a defamation dispute in the NSW Supreme Court, with Mr Morrow claiming his former business partner interfered with plans to renew hit consumer affairs series The Checkout for a seventh season on the ABC. Mr Murray is defending the claims.

Kirsten Drysdale was a host on the ABC series The Checkout and more recently featured in Reputation Rehab.

Ms Drysdale, a former host of The Checkout, has claimed in an affidavit released by the court on Monday that, by the end of the production of the show, Mr Morrow “had, and has, a reputation in the industry as someone who is combative, aggressive, intimidating, manipulative, controlling and very difficult to work with”.

Mr Morrow rejects these claims and, while Ms Drysdale’s affidavit was tendered, parts of it were not admitted as evidence to prove the truth of the underlying statements.

Ms Drysdale mentioned a phone call she had with Mr Morrow about changes to a script when she was 26 weeks pregnant in February 2018.

“Julian was yelling at me and using an aggressive tone of voice,” Ms Drysdale said in the affidavit.

“Julian was swearing, although he did not directly call me any crude names. Julian’s behaviour was so extreme that it caused me to become upset and to start crying.

“I understood Julian’s complaint to be that he believed I had criticised him, or expressed annoyance towards him, in … Slack messages that I had sent the night before.”

Mr Morrow claims his former business partner, veteran producer Nick Murray, interfered with plans to renew The Checkout on the ABC.

In an affidavit Mr Morrow said the phone conversation was tense but denied yelling at Ms Drysdale.

“I did not ‘yell’ at Kirsten in the call, I did take exception to Kirsten complaining about the relatively small number of changes to the script,” he said.

Mr Morrow later apologised for the phone call and conceded he may have been inappropriate, according to Ms Drysdale’s affidavit.

Mr Morrow agreed he apologised when Ms Drysdale said she was upset about the phone call in his affidavit.

Ms Drysdale said in the affidavit she is grateful for the opportunities Mr Morrow gave her earlier in her career.

The court has released affidavits in support of Mr Morrow’s character, including from former Q&A host Tony Jones and broadcast veteran Phillip Adams. Mr Adams said in his affidavit that Mr Morrow was “utterly ethical”.