First review: Beyond the Nine storm, what’s really in Lisa Wilkinson book It Wasn’t Meant To Be Like This
The thorny question of how Lisa Wilkinson’s memoir would deal with Karl Stefanovic’s marriage split is answered, as she highlights an event that was “disgusting to witness”.
It Wasn’t Meant To Be Like This is not only the title of Lisa Wilkinson’s memoir, but possibly what the presenter has felt lately after a storm of conjecture over her time at Channel 9.
She may even at times have wondered if she should have once again turned down the offer of a book deal, as she recently told me she did some years ago, when she didn’t feel ready to reveal her life.
But Wilkinson has a story worth hearing. And this book, out tomorrow (Nov 3), is so much more than a candid chronicle of the former Today star’s decade with – and exit from – Nine, despite current media obsession.
It’s the story of a girl raised by loving parents in the southwestern suburbs of Sydney; a teenage magazine junkie who had an extraordinary trajectory after starting as a “girl Friday” at Dolly.
It opens an intriguing, accessible window on four decades of media experience – leavening serious issues, like Wilkinson’s passionate feelings around gender equality and women standing by one another, with personal revelations and cracking tales from life in the showbiz fast lane. Nerve-wracking meetings with the legendary Kerry Packer; escapades with mega-movie stars and world-famous rockers; working with a who’s-who of Aussie TV talent; being serenaded by Michael Buble; and an awkward encounter with her childhood crush Daryl Braithwaite.
Then there are the pollies – prime ministers and presidents – royals and numerous entertainment executives. Even a cringey hotel encounter with The Don (“He was loud, he was gauche, he was filthy rich, and Donald Trump was standing right next to me...” she begins, signing off the anecdote with “Ugh.”)
It’s a roll-call of the good, the bad, the ugly and the sleazy; Wilkinson hasn’t liked them all but, as she notes in the introduction, even those we dislike can impart useful life lessons on how not to behave. And it’s told with humour, where appropriate, and a “did this really happen to me?” relatability.
On the personal front, I challenge you not to have tears in your eyes as Wilkinson farewells her beloved father Ray. Or when she reveals just how horrifically she was bullied by teenage tormentors (you can’t help wondering if she will meet the vile thugs again as a successful celebrity … mini-spoiler, she does).
And I suspect her decision to be open about how she was molested as a teen by a friend’s father has already resonated with many across Australia.
You can hear the 61-year-old’s familiar voice in your head as you read each page. And those are her own words. Wilkinson shared, when we chatted over Zoom, that she had initially planned to let her husband, prolific author Peter FitzSimons, lay the groundwork.
“I said ‘I can’t write a book – I can write a 1000-word article. I wrote the Andrew Olle Media Lecture but that took me nine months and autobiographies are more than 5000 words last time I looked’,” she confessed.
They started to record interviews, with FitzSimons promising he’d get it transcribed and together they’d sort the “bedrock of the book”. But he lost those recordings, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as Wilkinson had realised that her husband was only asking her questions he already knew the answer to – and “I’d already lived half a life before I met Pete.”
So she decided to just sit down and write.
Each time I have spoken to Wilkinson she has been generous and gracious. She is equally so in the book. For those wondering whether she covers Karl Stefanovic’s 2016 marriage breakdown with Cassandra Thorburn, and his relationship with now-wife Jasmine Yarbrough, she does – relatively briefly, and extending that same care to how she shares her former Today co-host’s dark times. In fact, despite the fact that their TV friendship took a nose-dive (if you’ve somehow missed the accounts of their awkward last day at work together, or the pay gap issues, you can catch up by clicking the links) she praises Stefanovic’s work ethic and scatters warm anecdotes about him throughout the book.
When it comes to his surprise marital split, which generated endless headlines at the time, she is respectful of Thorburn (as she is, later on, of Yarbrough); acknowledges Stefanovic’s ability to soldier on at Today for weeks without revealing his personal upset; and writes about wanting to shield him from leering paparazzi.
“At one airport, as we came through the security doors, I heard a pap continually goading him, ‘Hey Karl, why did you leave your wife?’ It was disgusting to witness, but Karl didn’t flinch; he just kept walking. He refused to give them what they wanted – a blow-up.
His restraint was extraordinary,” she writes.
“I, on the other hand, wanted to yell at them to back off, and it took every bit of strength I had in me not to. Sensing my fury, Karl just mumbled under his breath next to me, ‘Don’t react’.”
In the “morning wars” section of the book, among other interesting lines are Wilkinson’s descriptions of her contract negotiations at Nine and her growing sense of dissatisfaction at the station; and her revelation that she was courted by Ten, where she now hosts The Sunday Project, for some weeks before she was dropped by Nine. While she writes she “had no interest in playing one network off against another, and even less in doing it publicly”, that lifeline would ultimately enable her to turn a shock exit into a new job opportunity the very same day.
When we last spoke, the day after that extract detailing her last moments at Today was published, Wilkinson paused as I asked if she was more nervous or excited that her book – or her labour of love as she called it – was about to be pushed out into the world.
“It’s a tough question because I really understand extracts are meant to create headlines and they are meant to stir up interest,” she said.
“But what I’m really looking forward to is people seeing and understanding all – from the experiences which led up to where I am now and seeing it holistically and the way I’ve approached everything in my life with gratitude. And a desire to do good work and a desire to be just a good person and be a good mother and raise healthy children. And have a perspective on this weird thing called fame that I have struggled with because I am still Lisa from Campbelltown. I hope people can see beyond the one-dimensional character they have seen on TV.”
It wasn’t Meant To Be Like This by Lisa Wilkinson, published by HarperCollins, is out on November 3.
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