What you never knew about Richard Wilkins

HE’S been a fixture on Australian TV for three decades, with a well-documented love life. But few people know the fascinating family story that shaped his life.

Richard Wilkins is nothing if not a family man. Pictured with his five children at his daughter Rebecca’s recent wedding in New Zealand.

BEFORE his hair made its own headlines, before he became a red-carpet regular, even before he was pop star Richard Wilde, Richard Wilkins was a teen dad from the north island of New Zealand.

On the night of his 18th birthday, Wilkins conceived a child with his 16-year-old girlfriend. Less than a year later, he was married, working in an abattoir, and had become the father of a beautiful baby boy with Down syndrome.

A generation of Australians has only ever known Richard Wilkins as a fixture on the Today show desk, at which he has sat for almost 23 years. But he has a fascinating backstory, and the defining moment of that story is the birth of his first son, Adam.

Dickie engages Jason Donovan in a wrestle on a magazine cover in the late 80s.

“I have always described Adam as my rock,” he says.

“I had the potential to be the black sheep of the family, certainly the potential to have a wild side. I fell in love with the new music. I was sort of ready to run with all of that, and then Adam came along. He forced me to grow up.”

Wilkins is a case study in showbiz longevity, a man whose ability to reinvent himself has kept him on our screens for the better part of 30 years.

Perhaps a bigger achievement, though, and one almost everyone whose path he has crossed would agree upon, is that he has survived decades in the public eye, three marriages, five children to four mothers and countless gossip column inches without becoming jaded.

Despite all the twists and turns in his showbiz life, Dickie, unlike many in his industry, never became a dickhead.

Wilkins ushers me into the lounge room of his pad on the lower north shore of Sydney. It’s breathtaking; from the deck there is a sweeping view over Willoughby Bay, which he punts around on the weekends with his Today show mates Ross Greenwood and Ben Fordham.

Wilkins is a devoted dad. So proud, he’s almost bursting.

There’s a clifftop pool, a bar, and a gym which is decorated with a poster of Richard Wilde.

There are also two dozen-odd pairs of orphaned sunglasses on the kitchen counter, left behind after parties. At 62, Wilkins is still the first port of call when there’s a celebration required. He often hosts Today’s end-of-year bash. Even when Stellar arrives one Friday afternoon, there’s pâté, cornichons and dip waiting hospitably.

The best party he’s even been to, he says — and he’s certainly been to plenty — was his daughter Rebecca’s wedding in Queenstown, New Zealand, last year. He whips out an album of photographs of the day, which includes the most special picture of all; a shot of Wilkins surrounded by his five children, the first photograph ever taken of all six of them together.

One thing is clear: Wilkins is a devoted dad. So proud, he’s almost bursting. There’s Adam, 43, “the rock that stopped me running off the rails”. Rebecca, 33, “the glue that binds us together”. Nick, 31, “the heart and soul, he’s such a solid guy”, Christian, 21, “the theatrical one in the family”. And Estella, 12, his daughter with Collette Dinnigan, who is “mad about horses”.

“I guess I could acknowledge the fact that temptation got the better of me.” Picture: Justin Lloyd

“My children have always been paramount to me,” he says. “Of all the nice things that have happened, they are my infinitely greatest achievement. I’ve always been ambitious and always had stuff I wanted to do, but I would hope that I have never neglected family life. There are times when I probably haven’t prioritised it, and there are times that I am not incredibly proud of, nothing specific, but I think it’s all turned out OK. There’s no such thing as a normal life or normal family.”

That’s a lesson Wilkins learnt early — in March 1973, to be exact, not long after Adam was born. “I remember going in and looking at Adam, and I hate even repeating these words, but I sensed there was something unusual, different. I went home, and Mum said, ‘How is everything going?’

“I said, ‘He looks a bit funny — I hope he’s not Mongoloid’ [an early, derogatory term for Down syndrome]. I remember saying those words.”

Adam did have Down syndrome, a condition in which a baby is born with an extra chromosome. “It was a shock. I think we wondered what it meant, what do we need to do, how does it work, will we be able to cope?”

“I deeply respect my other children for the way they have dealt with that.”

The Wilkins family urged the couple to put Adam into a home; his wife’s family urged them to keep him at home with them.

Initially, they did the latter. Wilkins, whose classical violin training had morphed into a passion for rock music, played in a band by night, worked in the abattoir in the early morning, and went to teachers’ college to earn money (back in those days, the New Zealand government paid aspiring teachers). But after 18 months, the couple put Adam in care. “That eventually tore [the relationship] apart, I think, because her father, as fate would have it, looked after some handicapped kids, and he was convinced that the kids should live in the home,” Wilkins says. “My parents said, ‘Get on with your life, we will all take care of Adam.’ It was complicated. We were 18 and 16. We were kids.”

Wilkins (as Richard Wilde) toured with his band, Wilde & Reckless, studied, and spent every spare cent on Adam’s care. “I never shirked the responsibility. I never will,” he says. “We used to see him every weekend and take him out.”

Once, after he moved to Australia in 1980, Wilkins was late with a payment. “My dad wrote me a filthy letter telling me I was a disgrace and needed to honour my obligations,” he says. “I felt so terrible, I never did that again.”

“They said, ‘You’re a bit old [he was 32], but you don’t look too old’.” Picture: Justin Lloyd

Now, Adam lives in a house with four other handicapped adults, close to his mother in New Zealand. “He’s the happiest guy on the planet, that’s my solace in the whole thing,” Wilkins says. “I deeply respect my other children for the way they have dealt with that, and I think most people who have a Down syndrome child in the family will tell you that child has really enhanced the lives of the whole family.”

In the 1970s, Richard Wilkins, aka Wilde, was big in New Zealand. He did some rock, and some cabaret. Some wanted him to be New Zealand’s Rod Stewart. Others wanted him to be New Zealand’s John Denver. But he wanted to be the next Split Enz, so he packed up and moved to Australia.

At the time, New Zealand bands were doing well here — the Finn brothers, Marc Hunter, Mi-Sex. “How hard could this be?” he wondered. Harder than he thought. Wilde & Reckless was one of four bands on the bill one night at the Sylvania Hotel in Sydney.

“After us, the next band filed on, their management were all there wearing ties, they had roadies, then on the stage went INXS. It was around the time they released Simple Simon. I thought, ‘Holy sh*t, we are in serious trouble.’”

“Suddenly, when I’m flying first class to New York, or to LA for the MTV Music Video Awards.”

Having divorced his first wife, Wilkins married again, and when two more babies came along, it was time to ditch the failing band and get a proper job. He became a marketing executive at 2DayFM, then 2UW, and did some acting (he was once on Neighbours). Then came the opportunity every muso and actor in Australia wanted, including Russell Crowe — host of the Australian version of MTV. “I just knew it was the right gig for me,” he says. “They said, ‘You’re a bit old [he was 32], but you don’t look too old.’”

The gig turned Wilkins into hot property during the late 1980s. In one of his neatly-kept scrapbooks, full of newspaper clippings and bill posters, there’s a Smash Hits magazine cover with the words, “4th Annual Readers’ Poll — Does Richard Wilkins Beat Jason Donovan?” (He didn’t keep the inside article, so the question remains unanswered.)

The MTV gig paved the way for his long career in television. Wilkins has gone on to be an unofficial spokesman for Australian music, making many friends — such as Rod Stewart, Michael Bublé and Neil Finn — and few enemies. None that Stellar can find, anyway.

“Some people say I’ve been unlucky in love, but I think I have been incredibly fortunate.” Picture: Justin Lloyd

But the demands of his work haven’t been great for his relationships. His second marriage broke up early in the MTV years, when Nick, the youngest of their kids, was not yet two years old.

“Suddenly, when I’m flying first class to New York, or to LA for the MTV Music Video Awards, and it was all rock stars and supermodels, I guess I could acknowledge the fact that temptation got the better of me, and I was pretty much an absent father who put his career first,” he says. “It is what it is. I’m not applying for sainthood. I probably wouldn’t get it, anyway.”

During his interview with Stellar magazine, Wilkins is candid and reflective, but his reputation as a ladies’ man proves to be the one subject that makes him uneasy. “I think it’s a little unfair,” he says when the subject is raised.

“I love smart, interesting people, and I have had a few relationships over the years. Some people say I’ve been unlucky in love, but I think I have been incredibly fortunate to be with beautiful, wonderful, talented, intelligent people — I think I am drawn to that.”

“Richard would be the first one to say he has made mistakes when it comes to women,” says a colleague who worked with Wilkins for many years, and believes the nature of his work makes long relationships difficult.

“I think he is one of the few lucky people who early on managed to find a job he loved to do.”

“He’s out all the time. He works so hard. He never turns off. I imagine if you were in a relationship with him, you wouldn’t see him much. It would have to be a pretty special woman who would live that life.”

Even so, Wilkins always made time for his children, even if he had to put them to bed behind the old MTV couch, or hang a “Do not disturb — sleeping child” sign on the door of his Nine Network dressing room.

These days, Wilkins is single. He faces the prospect of becoming a grandfather in a few years, and is OK — happy, even — with that. He often sees Adam, and holds regular fundraisers for kids with Down syndrome.

“At this stage in my life, my career and kids really are my priority,” he says. “I’m not going to join a monastery, but I am not desperate to move someone in.”

Wilkins lives with his 21-year-old son Christian, a model who is also a social media strategist for Today. “We’re like best friends, Dad and I,” Christian says.

“There’s this perception that he’s constantly out going to events and with people. Sure, we occasionally have a rock-star rock-out, but there’s nothing we love more than when it’s with me and my siblings, we are all lying by the pool, having a drink, cooking dinner and chatting.”

Wilkins has entered his 60s with his hair and his enthusiasm as buoyant as they were 40 years ago. “I think he is one of the few lucky people who early on managed to find a job he loved to do, and had a family that supported him,” Christian says.

“Between us and his job, he’s in such an incredible place emotionally. He loves it and we all love how happy it makes him.”

Originally published as What you never knew about Richard Wilkins