Peter FitzSimons cops a serve from Peter Ford over Alan Jones tweet

Author and husband of Lisa Wilkinson, Peter FitzSimons, has been shut down on Twitter and branded a “bully” over his recent post about Alan Jones.

Two prominent “Peters” of the media industry have clashed on Twitter over the whereabouts of controversial TV host Alan Jones.

Channel 7 entertainment reporter Peter Ford and author Peter FitzSimons, who is married to Lisa Wilkinson, aired their beef on Twitter after FitzSimons posted a seemingly insincere message “worrying” about Jones — who has been absent from his online series Alan Jones Direct To The People for months.

Hitting back, Ford pointed out the veteran broadcaster has been recovering from painful surgery, as followers flocked to chime in and pick sides.

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FitzSimons said he was “starting to get worried” about Alan Jones’ absence. Picture: Nine

Entertainment reporter Peter Ford was quick to hit back.

It comes after Jones disappeared from the airwaves in December despite declaring he’d “be everywhere” when he first launched his new online TV show with Australian Digital Holdings.

Instead, 80-year-old Jones has been updating his 184,000 Facebook followers with opinion pieces and appearing as a regular guest on a Canberra-based radio show, with his promised clips nowhere to be seen.

“I am starting to get worried. WHERE IS JONESY?,” FitzSimons posted of his absence since Christmas 2021.

“There were four shows streamed on Facebook b4 Chrissie, and we were promised it would revolutionise the whole media landscape. But tomorrow is 1 March, and there has been NOTHING,” he said, adding: “I think we should be told?,” and tagging ‘Sleeping Giants Oz’, a page which vows to make racism, bigotry, misogyny and climate change denial less profitable.

Alan Jones: Direct To The People was launched in December.

Ford hit back: “Peter as you well know Alan has been terribly ill all year with multiple surgeries and in enormous pain largely due to blockages in spinal cord. He was in hospital for seven weeks and now doing rehab. If all this gives you a thrill I’d suggest it says more about you than him.”

As some followers called for FitzSimons to retract his post, Ford wrote: “Good luck with that. Peter has been obsessed with him for years. He’s a bully in exactly the same way he accuses Alan of being. Just attacking from a different angle”.

Responding to another commenter, Ford maintained that he “likes” FitzSimons, before dishing out another brutal insult in defence of Jones.

“But fact remains he was a failure on breakfast radio (as opposed to Alan’s long success) and that eats away at him like a cancer.”

FitzSimons did not respond to Ford on Twitter.

Outspoken broadcaster Jones was axed from Sky News Australia in November last year, at the time accusing the network of “cancelling” his controversial views.

Commentator Alan Jones was dropped from Sky News last year. Picture: NCA NewsWire.

It is understood Jones’s exit deal with former employer 2GB - where he presented his Breakfast Show for almost 20 years - blocked him from hosting a morning radio show, leaving him turning to Facebook.