Ten was ‘intentionally cruel’: explosive claims by Lisa Wilkinson
Lisa Wilkinson has set out for the first time her claims of betrayal by Ten and her ‘devastation and humiliation’ at being removed from The Project, in previously secret documents.
Lisa Wilkinson has set out for the first time, in exacting detail, her claims of betrayal by Ten and her “devastation and humiliation” at being removed from The Project, in previously secret documents now released by the Federal Court.
The allegations are made in affidavits Wilkinson and her lawyers submitted to the court over who will pay her million-dollar legal fees.
According to the affidavit, on November 11, 2022, five months after her Logies speech, Ten boss Bev McGarvey informed Wilkinson’s agent, Nick Fordham, that Wilkinson was to be removed from The Project.
Her contract still had more than two years to run.
Fordham reported to her that McGarvey had said “because there had been too much heat on me in the months since the Logies speech – and as a result, too much ‘brand damage’ – it was best I be removed from my hosting role on The Project.”
Wilkinson said she was “devastated” at being taken off air.
“I was shocked, embarrassed and deeply disappointed by Ms McGarvey’s decision to remove me from The Project. It signified to me that Ten had no real interest in publicly correcting any of the damage done to me and my reputation and were now only making it worse. I knew the story of me leaving The Project would result in a continuation of significant and humiliating headlines,” her affidavit says.
After her final program on The Project, Ms McGarvey texted her: “Perfect delivery, you spoke from the heart. It was a beautiful sentiment and you are so generous to your colleagues. Thank you.
“The media should all be kind, you deserve it.”
A variation to Wilkinson’s contract envisaged that she would participate in an interview series during 2023 and 2024 but that had never occurred.
Wilkinson says her Logies speech was approved by both Ten management and Ten’s lawyers.
At a meeting with Ten lawyer Tasha Smithies on June 15, 2022, Ms Smithies requested Wilkinson delete a reference to a specific date in the Logies speech but otherwise “Ms Smithies told me that she did not require any other changes,” Wilkinson said in her affidavit.
She said she later told Sarah Thornton (executive producer of The Project) to ask Ms Smithies to review it one more time and that Ms Thornton sent her a text saying “Tasha says speech all good”.
After the speech, when furore broke out and a request was made for the Lehrmann rape trial to be stayed, Ten did not seek to be represented at the hearing or arrange for Wilkinson to be represented “once the allegations were made that Mr Drumgold had engaged with me in the manner recorded in the court’s subsequent judgment.”
Wilkinson has always maintained that the ACT DPP, Shane Drumgold, gave her no warning in a pre-trial conference that she should not make the speech.
‘My professional reputation was being attacked.’
Wilkinson said on June 21 she watched the Nine Network evening news at 6pm and learnt of the judgment made by ACT Chief Justice Lucy McCallum postponing the Lehrmann trial “which I perceived as very critical of me professionally and as a journalist regarding the Logies speech”.
She said in her affidavit that she rang Ms Smithies and said: “What the hell is going on? Channel Nine is reporting I was warned by Drumgold not to give that speech.” Ms Smithies assured her Mr Drumgold “had said no such thing”.
It wasn’t until later that evening when she read the judgment that she realised it was based on “an incorrect premise” of what had been said at the meeting with Drumgold.
The next day, the newspapers were highly critical of her and she became aware that barrister Matt Collins KC had done an interview on the Sunrise program that morning that was critical of her speech.
“I was extremely distressed that those comments suggested that I was in contempt of court in making that Ten-approved Logies speech,” Wilkinson says in the affidavit.
Dr Collins would later be hired by Ten to defend it in the Lehrmann defamation case, much to Wilkinson’s dismay.
“My professional reputation was being attacked on the basis of an incorrect assertion that I had been given – and then disregarded – a warning as described by McCallum CJ,” Wilkinson said.
According to her affidavit, Ten recommended against her attending court to explain her version to Chief Justice McCallum. Wilkinson said she had a number of conversations with Ms Smithies in which she asked that Ten “correct the public record” about both the Drumgold meeting and the legal advice upon which she was acting.
Later that same day, she learnt Dr Collins had been hired to represent both herself and Ten.
“I did not want Dr Collins acting for me, given what had happened, but I felt I had no choice in the matter.”
She was asked to attend a video-link meeting with Ten staff and Dr Collins, and was joined by her husband, Peter FitzSimons, and her agent, Mr Fordham. “I found the experience distressing. Despite my persistent requests .. no decision was made at that meeting to take any steps to correct the public record,” her affidavit said.
Ten promised her a “crisis comms team” to combat the bad publicity but that never eventuated.
Wilkinson discovered she was being personally sued by Bruce Lehrmann only when she read it in The Australian on February 8, last year. She decided she needed to be represented separately in the defamation case, and hired barrister Sue Chrysanthou SC.
Having been told Ten would cover her “properly incurred and reasonable in amount” legal expenses, Wilkinson initially dropped her plan to sue the network – only to later discover that Ten’s interpretation of “properly incurred” didn’t include separate representation.
Wilkinson called Ms McGarvey and asked what she had done wrong that would result in Ten failing to pay her expenses. Ms McGarvey told her she had done nothing wrong “but that I had chosen the ‘last lawyers in Australia’ that she wanted me to work with”.
When she asked whether Ten would have paid the costs if she’d chosen a different team, the network boss said she “could not answer that”, according to Wilkinson’s affidavit.
Having still received no payment of any costs, Wilkinson filed a claim against Ten on October 19, last year.
Ten then said it had no obligation to indemnify her for any defence costs because she was separately represented.
“I was gutted,” Wilkinson said in the affidavit. “I felt it unbelievable that Ten could adopt such a position … I thought Ten’s new position was intentionally cruel and wholly disingenuous.”
