Candid Lisa Wilkinson photo shows she looks very different minutes before going on-air

She looked immaculate on The Project last night, but a new photo reveals what Lisa Wilkinson looked like just minutes before going on-air.

As one of Australia’s top TV presenters, Lisa Wilkinson always looks immaculate on-air.

But it was almost a very different story just minutes before Thursday night’s The Project, with the 62-year-old journalist sharing a candid photo that showed she narrowly avoided a live television hair disaster.

Taking to Instagram, the former Today co-host gave fans a glimpse into what she looked like just four minutes before the show, with her hairstyle best described as an extreme case of bed hair.

She wrote, “Minutes to air hair. Let’s do this!!”

A clock on the monitor showed the time as 6:26pm - just four minutes before Wilkinson would appear on TV looking perfectly groomed.

Lisa Wilkinson minutes before she was on-air last night.

Luckily, the hair department managed to rapidly work their magic, and the mother-of-three soon appeared on-air with her signature put-together look.

To this! The hair department managed to touch Wilkinson up within minutes.

It’s not the first time Wilkinson has taken viewers behind the scenes of live TV, with the host sharing a rare photo in her 2021 book, It Wasn’t Meant To Be Like This, showing what early mornings often looked like on set of the Today show.

In the 2016 snap, Wilkinson could be seen with no make-up and rollers in her hair reading over a script, while her former co-host Karl Stefanovic was donning a hoodie.

She wrote, “What 4:30am used to look like for Karl and me.”

Karl Stefanovic and Lisa Wilkinson on-set of the Today show.

Elsewhere on Thursday’s episode, guest host Kate Langbroek caused a stir after revealing a gross confession live on air.

Langbroek, 56, revealed she regularly shares a toothbrush with her husband, Peter Lewis, leaving the panel in utter shock.

“Peter and I routinely share the same toothbrush. We drifted into it,” Langbroek said.

“Now the whole family has got a communal cup in our bathroom. We’ve got enough toothbrushes for everyone, but not the will to allocate colours.”

Wilkinson chimed in making an assumption that men do not keep their mouths as clean as women.

“You’ve got a lot of boys in your family. Boys don’t have the same dental hygiene, would you agree?” Wilkinson asked.

“Look, I don’t know. It’s clean,” Langbroek replied. “I could tell you what else we get up to … obviously I’m alone on this.”

Kate made the gross confession on-air, leaving her co-hosts stunned.

Meanehile, Wilkinson this week made headlines for lashing out at women’s magazines and celebrity gossip sites.

According to The Australian, Wilkinson was speaking to a 500-strong networking breakfast in Melbourne earlier this week when she made the comments, labelling the publications as bringing out “the worst in human nature”.

Wilkinson has recently been outspoken about celebrity gossip magazines. Picture: Araya Diaz/Getty Images for Casa Noble Tequila

Her scathing critique of the industry follows an online stoush with a news website over the publication of photos of Wilkinson eating a meal by herself, which was accompanied by a detailed blow-by-blow.

She said: “Every time we pick up one of those magazines in a doctor’s waiting room and every time we click on that salacious link to a trashy gossip website, not believing the ridiculous emotion-charged headline but clicking on the link nonetheless, a click means you like it, so it only brings more of it.

“In these faces women exist only to be ogled at, picked on, ridiculed, pitted against each other, laughed at or scorned. It’s designed to make us feel better if we are having a bad day, but it doesn’t, it makes us feel worse, and it simply brings out the worst in human nature.”

Originally published as Candid Lisa Wilkinson photo shows she looks very different minutes before going on-air