Stefanovic not buying into Wilkinson’s pay negotiation saga

Karl Stefanovic has weathered enough publicity storms to be wary of igniting any new ones, especially when it’s over his former “work wife” Lisa Wilkinson’s feelings of “betrayal”.

That’s how Wilkinson summed up her dethroning from the co-host’s chair at Nine’s Today show to her current on-air hubby Hamish Macdonald during an interview to promote her new book, adding she also felt “humiliated”, “stupid” and “pretty pathetic”.

Former Today co-hosts Karl Stefanovic and Lisa Wilkinson at the Logies in 2015.Credit: Getty Images

But Stefanovic isn’t buying into it.

“Brother, I’ve got too many positive and wonderful things going on in my life to talk about that stuff,” he told PS when asked about the deluge of revelations in Wilkinson’s new memoir – many of them about him. “I’m very happy. In work and life.”

But Wilkinson does not hold back in her memoir, It Wasn’t Meant To Be Like This, revealing Stefanovic proposed they negotiate over pay together, and accusing him of cutting her loose to ink his own multimillion-dollar deal – a deal that would ultimately destroy their relationship and see her demise from breakfast TV and Nine (the owner of this masthead).

“Karl said that with Georgie [Gardner] gone, and Ben [Fordham] having left to concentrate more on his radio career outside of Nine, we were the heart and soul of the show,” Wilkinson writes in extracts from the book ahead of its release next month. “Without us, he said, the network would be screwed. They needed us like never before. He wanted us to present to Nine as one entity, an unbreakable duo, with a dual contract on equal pay.”

Karl Stefanovic and Lisa Wilkinson on a national tour with Today.

But Wilkinson later discovered Stefanovic had secretly signed a new $2 million-a-year deal to stay with Nine as rumours swirled he was about to be poached by rival Seven.

“He [Karl] had played both networks off against each other brilliantly and in full public view,” she writes. “There was no doubt about it: Karl certainly knew the art of the deal.”

Wilkinson dramatically reveals details of the day she was ousted from the Today show; she was apparently left motionless in a state of shock after hearing the news over the phone while holding a can of tuna in her local Woolworths.

But PS can reveal that while Wilkinson’s world was supposedly dissolving around her in aisle six after negotiations to match Stefanovic’s pay deal fell over, sitting in her agent Nick Fordham’s Sydney office was a letter of offer from rival network Ten with a deal offering her $2 million a year for four years.

The supposedly top-secret Ten offer had been put on the table weeks before her dramatic exit from Nine.

Wilkinson recently renewed her deal with Ten, where she continues to co-host The Sunday Project and is understood to be among the highest-paid stars – of all genders – on the network, and by a considerable margin.

Wilkinson writes in great detail about her final morning on air on October 16, 2017, and how strange she’d found Stefanovic’s behaviour.

Wilkinson, returning from her second honeymoon, had not spoken to her sidekick for 10 days and writes she was already put out after Stefanovic dropped out of her wedding vow renewals with husband, Herald sports columnist Peter FitzSimons, at the 11th hour via text.

Instead, Stefanovic offered his congratulations on air.

“I don’t think the pause I took in that exact moment was picked up by the cameras, but in my mind it lasted an eternity. Now I get the congratulations? Because the cameras are on?” she writes. “For the next two hours, I exchanged not a single word with Karl outside of what was scripted – because for the first time I just didn’t trust myself to ‘play nice’.”

Ready to wear

The next generation of Sydney’s Laundy family pub dynasty is about to make its presence felt, however, it’ll be on the other side of the bar.

Sisters Sophie, 22, and, Analise, 19, are the daughters of former small business minister Craig Laundy, and next month will open the doors of a new business venture in their Hunters Hill neighbourhood. But it’s not a bar, rather a place for their contemporaries to find an outfit to wear to one.

Analise and Sophie Laundy outside their new Hunters Hill boutique.

The new fashion boutique, inside a historic sandstone shopfront, will be called 2OfUs and will carry a range of high-end Australian labels, from Manning Cartel to Ginger & Smart.

“We’ve worked in the pubs too, but this was a chance to try something different ... Dad has been a great source of advice, he certainly doesn’t let us get too carried away,” Sophie, who is also studying to become a nurse, told PS.

Thorny backlash for Rose

As the dust settles around Ruby Rose’s latest Hollywood drama, in which she has single-handedly taken on the entertainment giant Warner Bros Television, her old friends in Sydney are wondering if the star, who has previously spoken of her battles with depression and mental health, has finally gone too far.

Ruby Rose said in 2020: “This was not a decision I made lightly as I have the utmost respect for the cast, crew and everyone involved with the show.”Credit: Jordon Nuttall/The CW

Ruby Rose and controversy have long been bedfellows, but the former Sydney “celebutant” – a local red-carpet fixture who went on to become a Hollywood star after infiltrating the social orbits of everyone from Taylor Swift to Kendall Jenner – dropped the biggest bombshell of her career by firing off a raft of allegations, from bullying to a toxic workplace culture, against the producers of what was meant to be her biggest career opportunity yet: the lead in Batwoman. She also targeted castmates in a stream of social media updates this week, with all allegations being swiftly denied by all involved.

In the early days of her fledgling celebrity, it was Rose’s complicated romances with high-profile girlfriends – from supermodel Catherine McNeil to pop star Lisa Origliasso – that kept her in the gossip columns. At the time she railed against the media’s intrusion into her private life and the constant scrutiny of her sexuality. Fair enough, but without it, she wouldn’t have had the career she has been enjoying.

Then there were her feuds with the likes of comedian Josh Thomas, the pair falling out spectacularly over a $600-plus bar tab, and even a spat with Khloe Kardashian.

But that’s all small-fry compared to the current situation, with Warner Bros hitting back accusing her of providing a “revisionist history”.

It remains to be seen if Rose’s highly publicised spray will spell the kiss of death for her Hollywood career ambitions.

Malouf rubbishes ‘stain’ of raid

Sydney’s millionaire garbo Ian Malouf says he’s “big enough and ugly enough” to have weathered the ignominy of having his home raided by Australian Federal Police officers on behalf of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, but says the “stain” still remains even after the corporate watchdog confirmed it had closed its investigation.

“I’m still pretty angry about it. But I can handle that sort of thing because I was never worried about it. I just think it’s unfair that my reputation is tarnished because the raids generated publicity, even though they didn’t find anything,” said Malouf, who made his $728 million fortune from Dial-A-Dump and now runs the superyacht charter business Ahoy Club.

Ian Malouf and daugther Ellie aboard Mischief. Credit: James Alcock

“I’m one of the lucky ones. I have a good life ... I’m living in an amazing place now, my yacht Mischief has just come back to Sydney after a tour of duty in Queensland and summer is going to be a cracker on Sydney Harbour.”

Malouf said he had settled in “nicely” at the spectacular $60 million penthouse apartment high above Sydney’s CBD that was bought in his daughter’s name from property developer John Boyd.

It’s almost a year since the raids on Malouf’s business premises in Double Bay and his then eastern-suburbs Woollahra home, which he was renting for $12,000 a week from embattled former Crown Resorts chairman Rob Rankin.

ASIC never disclosed what it was searching for, though The Australian has since reported ASIC had investigated Malouf over trading in shares in the Toronto-listed The Stars Group in 2019 before it announced a $US12 billion merger with wagering giant Flutter Entertainment.

Last week an ASIC spokesperson confirmed its investigation had concluded and that it would not be taking any enforcement action due to “insufficient evidence”.

Malouf said he was now focused on planning for a housewarming party at his new digs. No doubt he has much to celebrate.

Pointing out racism

The complaints have been coming in thick and fast around the genteel streets of swish Point Piper ever since a new street sign popped up telling all and sundry on Wunulla Road: “Racism Not Welcome”.

Perhaps it was its positioning above a sign pointing to the elite Royal Motor Yacht Club that put noses out of joint?

Not everyone is welcome in Point Piper, especially racists.

“It is an initiative to get the conversation started, and in that regard, it has certainly done that. There are about a dozen of them dotted around the eastern suburbs ... it’s a temporary campaign,” explained proponent and Woollahra councillor Anthony Marano.

“I think it’s a good thing to get people talking about racism and to think about it and be reminded that even in the comfortable bubble of the eastern suburbs, it still exists.”

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