Report: Channel 9 presenter Danika Mason dating NRL journeyman after wedding cancellation
Channel 9 sports presenter Danika Mason has been spotted “cuddling up” to an NRL star just months after the cancellation of her wedding.
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Channel 9 sports presenter Danika Mason is reportedly dating Bulldogs NRL player Liam Knight following the cancellation of her wedding late last year.
Mason, 33, was seen “cuddling up” to Knight, 29, on a date at The Butler restaurant in Sydney’s Potts Point on the weekend.
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A fellow diner told Daily Mail Australia the pair were cuddling up to each other during the date in full view of onlookers.
“Her demeanour was that of a relaxed woman enjoying a pre-season fling with a younger specimen; his was that of a deer in headlights,” the diner said.
The Bulldogs prop was also seen outside Mason’s South Maroubra home on Wednesday, leaving to take Mason’s dog Charlie for a walk.
Mason has been a picture of strength since the cancellation of her wedding to personal trainer Todd Liubinskas in October last year, just three weeks before the pair were due to tie the knot in NSW’s Hunter Valley.
The TV star was seen performing her sideline duties on Channel 9’s coverage of the 2023 NRL Finals without her wedding ring and showing no signs of her private turmoil in the final weeks of the season.
Friends of Mason described her as being “beyond devastated” and “completely heartbroken” at the time.
Mason was a consummate professional throughout Channel 9’s broadcast of the NRL Grand Final alongside legends including Andrew Johns and Billy Slater, and was seen regularly smiling and laughing at comments made by the rest of the panel.
She was also seen starring on the network’s coverage of the Australian Open tennis tournament in January.
That came after reports that she’d been contacted by a third party and asked to hand her engagement ring back to ex-partner Liubinskas.
The couple had been in a relationship for over three years at the time of their break-up.
Liubinskas proposed to her in July 2021, sharing the moment on Instagram.
Mason has built a successful career at Channel 9, where she started as an intern in the newsroom in 2012 and rose to eventually host The Sunday Footy Show.
Meanwhile, Liam Knight is an NRL journeyman having been granted a release from the Rabbitohs to join the Bulldogs late in the 2023 season.
He has played 81 NRL matches across short stints at the Sea Eagles, Raiders, Rabbitohs and now the Bulldogs.
Knight also hosts his own podcast with fellow front-rower Toby Rudolf, called Stuk in the Middle.
He has been open with his struggles with mental health and alcoholism in the past and revealed last year he was attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings twice a week.
“I had this victim mentality,” he said in an emotional interview with The Daily Telegraph.
“Poor me, poor me. It all just spiralled and I lost control of myself. I was angry on the world. Really depressed.
“I hit the party scene hard to get over it. Huge nights. Sometimes for two or three days. I was out of it. I’d go out wherever there was something going on.
“The prescription painkillers. Endone, Panadeine forte, drinking. All that stuff.
“I was a mess and in a really bad place trying to hide from everything.”
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Originally published as Report: Channel 9 presenter Danika Mason dating NRL journeyman after wedding cancellation
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