Lisa Wilkinson opens up about Karl Stefanovic and how she found out she lost her job on Today

Lisa Wilkinson has revealed details about her “humiliating” dismissal by Channel 9 — and the truth about her relationship with Karl Stefanovic.

Lisa Wilkinson has revealed the moment she was “humiliated” and “betrayed” by her former employer, Channel 9, when she was ”dismissed” from the network’s breakfast program.

The Project host sat down for an interview with journalist Hamish Macdonald to discuss her upcoming memoir — It Wasn’t Meant To Be Like This – when asked about how she found out she’d no longer be a part of the Today Show line-up in October 2017.

“I was standing in aisle six at Woolies holding a can of tuna [when she got the call from management],” Wilkinson explained.

“I felt stupid and humiliated and betrayed and pretty pathetic.”

Lisa Wilkinson during an emotional interview on The Project about her departure from Channel 9.

Wilkinson said the idea of her dismissal was to “humiliate” her, because she’d been in negotiations to try and close the pay gap with her co-host of 10 years, Karl Stefanovic.

“I was very expendable,” she said, noting the gap she had with Stefanovic “doesn’t get much bigger” than what she experienced.

“I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye to the audience. I was just told – that’s it.”

Wilkinson, who worked side-by-side with Stefanovic for a decade on the breakfast show, said she no longer has a relationship with him.

“We are not really in touch,” she admitted, adding she was “hurt” by their subsequent breakdown after she exited the breakfast show.

“But you pick up and you move on — and that’s exactly what I did.”

Lisa Wilkinson said she was “hurt” by her relationship end with Karl Stefanovic.

Lisa said she doesn’t speak to Karl anymore.

It’s perhaps a surprising admission from Wilkinson, given the pair appeared to publicly continue their friendship, posing for photos during a lunch together weeks after the headline-making departure.

In a subsequent interview with Stellar, Wilkinson said she at the time, there was a lot of information said about her departure for Channel 9 that was “untrue”.

“It was quite shocking some of the narrative that was put out there by my previous employer,” she told the News Corp publication.

“I feel that there was a lot that was said that was untrue. And I won’t say that some of the things I read weren’t pretty painful.”

Lisa Wilkinson sat down with her The Project co-host of The Project

Lisa Wilkinson has vowed to leave “no stone unturned” in the autobiography, which runs to almost 500 pages and tracks her incredible rise through Australia’s media ranks, from being the youngest editor of Dolly magazine at just 21, to becoming the international editor-in-chief of Cleo, to her move into the TV world in the 90s as a panellist on beloved daytime show Beauty and the Beast.

In an Instagram post Wilkinson said the book “tells the story of how this magazine-junkie kid from (proudly) the western suburbs of Sydney, worked hard to survive the bumps and bruises of my teenage years, and went on to find myself in situations and places I could have once only ever dreamt about.”

Lisa Wilkinson reveals cover of new memoir It Wasn’t Meant To Be Like This https://www.instagram.com/p/CRgGAJRlPGB/?utm_medium=copy_link

She said the tell-all would disclose many long-held secrets.

“In it, I’ve completely opened up on things I’ve never talked about before, not even with some of my closest girlfriends,” she said. “I’ve left no stone unturned, particularly when it comes to some of the more public moments you’ve seen in the headlines. Now, you’ll know the truth.”

“I share the roller coaster ride of joys, and sadnesses, the pinch-myself moments, and the hard lessons I’ve had to learn along the way.”

Read Lisa Wilkinson’s full interview and book extracts in Stellar, free with today’s Sunday Telegraph.

It Wasn’t Meant To Be Like This by Lisa Wilkinson (HarperCollins, $45), out on November 3 and available for pre-order now.

Originally published as Lisa Wilkinson opens up about Karl Stefanovic and how she found out she lost her job on Today