It was my first day back at the Today show desk after having a week off, and the first time I would see Karl after his no-show at Pete’s and my 25th wedding anniversary celebration where we’d renewed our vows in front of our closest friends and family. Karl and his new partner Jas had been invited but dropped out just two days before via a text to Pete saying that they were extending an overseas trip and wouldn’t be attending.In the ten days since, Karl hadn’t contacted me, his co-host of almost eleven years, at all. No phone message, no text, no apology, not even a simple congrats. Just complete silence.I was curious to know when I – as opposed to Pete – would actually hear from Karl. Inall the years we’d sat next to each other, even though there were the occasional frustrations on both sides, upsets were rare. But on this particular morning, I was upset. With limited numbers, there were two precious spots at the wedding we could so easily have filled with dear friends, but Karl’s late text meant those seats had gone empty.By 5.10 on that Monday morning, Karl and I still hadn’t crossed paths. Then, as I was seated on set before our regular 5.15am live cross to the early news, Karl arrived at the desk only just in time.And he was instantly off and running, ‘Morning, Airlie, we’ve got a great show for you this morning …’Promo done, and then, quick as a flash, Karl threw a joke at the floor crew and he was gone. Really? I sat there for a moment.Not a mention. Not a ‘how was the holiday?’ And certainly no ‘Sorry about that no-show at the wedding’. Not … anything.What I felt in that instant was hard to put into words. More than anything, I felt just a little bit pathetic. What was this thing Karl and I had between us? I’d presumed that along with ourwork relationship, there was a friendship as well. I must have been wrong. For all the early starts, the ratings we’d worked so hard to claw back, the significant wins, the occasional disappointments, the hilarious on-air moments, the understanding we had of each other’s strengths and weaknesses, the confidences we’d shared, the chemistry magic even we didn’t quite understand … how could he still treat me with such uncaring disregard?Did I now finally know exactly where I stood with Karl?With just minutes now to on-air, news presenter Sylvia Jeffreys took her place at the end of the desk and cheerily asked how our second honeymoon in Byron Bay was. ‘You must show me the pictures. I love that place. And how’s your arm? It was so great that you got by without your cast at the wedding.’Whether Karl heard Sylvia’s comments as he wandered back across the studio floor, on the way slapping one of our cameramen on the back, telling a joke to another, before slipping into the chair beside me, I’ll never know.And then, that familiar theme music began. Our floor manager counted us down: five, four, three, two … and the red light was on.Then, before I could draw breath, Karl leaned in. ‘Well, good morning, great to have your company on this Monday, October 16. And good news, Lisa has returned from holidays … in fact, didn’t you get married again while you were away? Congratulations!’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?What did Karl expect me to say? ‘Yeah, I did Karl and I invited you, you said yes, and at the last minute you didn’t show up and haven’t said a single word to me since’?It was the 5.30 half-hour, the part of the show where we had long joked we could be our most raw and relaxed, because, let’s face it, at that hour, no-one is watching. In that moment I was certainly feeling raw, but relaxed was not one of the many emotions I had in play.What had happened a week before – a joyous celebration amongst our closest friends and family – clearly counted for nothing to Karl. Nor did my disappointment.I glanced over at Sylvia. She knew I was upset, and I could see that she had clocked Karl’s words but quickly looked away, her smile never budging. I took a deep breath, my eyes momentarily widening at what I had just heard, turned to the camera, and said … ‘Yeah, I did Karl, but why would anybody care about that when it’s news time? Sylvia, good morning …’And with that, no further words needed to be spoken. Karl knew I had cut him dead, something I had never done on or off air before. I was furious, possibly more at myself for having cared so much in the first place. With all those hours still ahead of us sitting half a metre apart, I knew it was going to be a long show.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”.But there was now another reason I was quietly fuming: the bizarre rundown for that day’s show. Almost every interview was being done by Karl alone. I had just about nothing to do. During the ad-break I messaged our Executive Producer Mark Calvert and asked: is that a mistake?‘No, it isn’t,’ was the sharp reply. I was suddenly reminded that he still hadn’t responded to any of my emails or phone calls asking what he knew about me being cut from Nine’s annual Up Fronts presentation to the ad industry the previous week while I’d been away, even though I’d done a whole morning’s filming for it.What the heck was going on? I messaged Mark again as he sat in the control room just a short distance away, and asked if I could see him after the show. I waited. This time, no response.To say I was having a rotten morning would be an understatement.For two hours, I sat there feeling completely useless. The Today Show was now The Karl Show. What was the point of me even being there?The cameras were on me so there was nowhere to hide. And yet, I felt completely invisible.Then at 7.30, something in me suddenly switched. Did I really want to sit there for another 90 minutes feeling miserable? I’d always promised myself to do every show as if it was my last.So, once again, I did. It was a mood switch which, more than likely, confused the bejesus out of Karl. But for the remainder of the show, I was determined to enjoy what little I’d been given to do beyond throwing to the news and weather every half-hour.This job was a privilege I had always treasured and should really only ever belong to those who felt that way about it. I was determined I wasn’t going to throw another minute of it away. When I walked off set that day at 9 o’clock, I was proud of myself. I’d kept my promise.But as I got back to my dressing room, the show’s rundown was still bugging me. I had to go and find out what was going on. Why was Karl so completely dominating the show now? In fact, why hadn’t Karl himself questioned the absurd imbalance of the rundown? He was after all, the guy who so famously created headlines for wearing the same suit every day for a year, supposedly in protest over the sexist treatment of females on TV. Yet he was clearly just fine with me being treated like this?So, I quickly changed and headed up to the office to try and catch Mark before the usual 9.30am planning meeting for the next day’s show. Strangely, he had already left. No-one was quite sure why or when he would be back. So I waited. But by 11.15 there was still no sign of Mark, he wasn’t responding to calls, and with an 11.30 hospital appointment for physio on my recently broken wrist, I had to leave as well. Something very strange was going on.The good thing was my manager Nick Fordham had a meeting with Nine’s CEO, Hugh Marks, scheduled for that afternoon. I spoke to Nick, who agreed that something was up and promised he would raise it with Marks.‘How do you feel?’ he asked.I thought about it for a moment. Then said, ‘Kind of sad for some reason.’‘Don’t be,’ Nick said. ‘I’m sure it will all work out.’****Later that afternoon, I dropped into the local supermarket to pick up a few groceries and some things for dinner, while taking the usual afternoon conference call planning for the next day’s show. The call over, I had just grabbed a tin of tuna from the shelves when …****My phone rang again. It was Nick. I knew he’d had that meeting with Hugh Marks so I was interested to find out how it went.‘Hey, Nick …’ I said.‘Hey there. Where are you?’ Nick’s voice was low and measured and I couldn’t quite hear him above the noise of the passing shopping trolleys and John Denver’s ‘Country Roads’ playing over the supermarket intercom. ‘I’m at Woolies in the canned fish aisle, why?’‘I’m just getting into the lift at Channel 9. I’m trying to keep my voice down,’ he whispered. ‘I’ve just left Hugh Marks’ office.’‘Of course,’ I said. ‘So how did you go?’Nick: ‘You’re off the show.’Me: ‘Off what show?’Nick: ‘You’re off the Today show.’Me: ‘Sorry, Nick? What do you mean by “off”?’Nick: ‘Permanently off. Never to appear again. Today was your last day.’I …‘Nick, hang on … that can’t be right. I just got off the call to the team for tomorrow’s show. Mark Calvert was on that call. He said nothing. And what about Nine’s new contract offer that they’ve already put on the table?’What the hell had just happened?Nick could tell I was in complete shock.‘I’ll meet you at your place in ten minutes … are you OK?’I looked around. I wasn’t so sure that I was. I was in a fog of utter disbelief.I had just been dismissed from Channel 9. Effective immediately.In aisle six at my local Woolies. And I was holding a can of tuna.I hung up from Nick, and gently placed that tin of tuna back on the shelf. I then put back my other groceries, hoping that as I wandered the aisles, what I had just heard would start to make sense.But it didn’t. Those words just kept going through my head: ‘Never to appear again.’Finally, I placed my now-empty green basket neatly back in the pile by the checkout, my head down, desperate not to meet anyone’s gaze, and walked in silence to the car. I wasn’t in tears. I wasn’t anything. Apart from numb. Did I really just get sacked? The same woman Nine wasapparently so proud of, they had recently started lining me up for next year’s Gold Logie?While news of my dismissal was still hours from going public, the humiliation I felt at that moment was overwhelming, knowing that a few suburbs away, Hugh Marks, a man who had declared at my ten-year celebration how crucial I was to Today’s ongoing success, had now not only shown me the door but slammed it shut behind me. Turns out that kiss on the cheek I’d felt so uncomfortable about the last time he had greeted me in his office, was not one of admiration. It was the kiss of death.I tried to call Pete, but it went straight to voicemail.Who could I call? Karl?But hang on … was this why he didn’t attend the wedding and hadn’t spoken to me since? Was this why he never said a word about the show’s strange rundown that morning?Oh. What about Mark Calvert? Did he know he suddenly didn’t have a co-host of the show he executive produced? Was this why he hadn’t been returning my calls?Oh again. The penny was starting to drop.As I headed home and desperately tried to get some sort of perspective on this moment, I focused on something Pete always said to me in tough times. ‘There are three questions you and I must ask,’ he’d say, before referring to the children: ‘Is Jake OK? Is Louis OK? Is Billi OK?’The answer was a resounding yes to all three. No-one had cancer. The house hadn’t burnt down. It was only a job. And it was only TV. I was simply parting ways with Nine on a principle. We had fallen out on the issue of the massive gender pay gap I’d been experiencing for years sitting next to Karl – despite together, taking the show to number one in the extremely lucrative breakfast TV ratings. Of all the hills for my time on the Today show to die on, I was OK with the fact that this turned out to be the one. *Hours after being dropped by Nine, Lisa Wilkinson revealed she had accepted a job offer from Channel 10. Read how that happened, and much more, in It Wasn’t Meant To Be Like This, by Lisa Wilkinson and published by HarperCollins. It is out on November 3 and available for pre-order now at Booktopia.
Source: Sun Herald
