‘Really sweating’: Georgie Gardner freaks out during Today segment

GEORGIE Gardner looked panicked as she faced her biggest fear, and Karl Stefanovic was right next to her, holding her hand.

TODAY host Georgie Gardner faced her biggest fear live on air today — getting up close and personal with several potentially deadly snakes.

The latest in a series of segments about Today presenters facing their fears — one that so far this week made entertainment reporter Richard Wilkins ride a rollercoaster — had Gardner and embattled co-host Karl Stefanovic go head to head with snakes including a massive python and a highly venomous tiger snake.

Admitting she was “sweating and feeling anxious,” Gardner was at times ready to jump out of her seat as two snake handlers brought her within centimetres of the animals.

Stefanovic — whose working relationship with Gardner has been under a media microscope since news broke of the late night phone call he and brother Peter shared in which they vented about their Nine colleagues, Gardner included — did his best to placate his co-host.

“I want you to know one thing ... I am here for you,” he told Gardner, at one point holding his visibly frightened colleague’s hand.

Georgie and her not so little friend.

As the segment wore on, the snake handlers pushed at the limits of Gardner’s phobia, placing the back half of a giant boa constrictor on her lap — and eventually, around her neck.

“It is not threatened and it is not thinking about food. You are assisting to keep the snake warm. Nice and warm,” they assured her.

“Do you think it can feel my tension though?” she asked.

“All I’m thinking is, I wish I had a manicure because you keep taking close-ups of my fingers,” she quipped as she handled the massive animal.

Karl gives his co-host a reassuring hand hold.

Announcing she was “quite proud” of herself at the end of the segment, Gardner was congratulated by her co-host — who then joked about his own “phobias.”

“Georgie Gardner, well done. Joins us tomorrow when I overcome my fears of a stiff breeze ... I’m scared of everything,” he said, as he and Gardner joked that “business class flights and five-star hotels” were among his biggest fears.

On Monday’s episode of Today — the same morning New Idea ran salacious details of the phone call between the Stefanovic brothers — Gardner labelled her co-host “pathetic” live on air when he confessed to having a fear of sausage dogs.