Breakfast TV’s popular frontman Karl Stefanovic has had enough.
Still reeling from former co-host Lisa Wilkinson’s explosive memoir, It Wasn’t Meant To Be Like This, he can’t understand why he and his family had to feature in it.
“He’s had a gutful. He was prepared to cop it on the chin if Lisa’s publicity around the book was only about him.
“But then came the chapter about his family, including his ex-wife Cass,” a close friend and former Nine colleague tells Woman’s Day.
Karl, 47, and Lisa, 61, were a winning combination for years.
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After gracing our screens side by side for more than a decade, the winning combination of Karl, 47, and Lisa, 61, delivered a ratings bonanza for Today.
But when Lisa’s contract negotiations broke down in 2017 after demanding the network match her salary to that of Karl’s rumoured $3 million deal, no one, least of all Lisa, expected to be shown the door.
“Karl was strongly advised by Nine’s senior management not to be provoked by her bombshell claims – he was furious his former co-host and friend threw him under the bus,” reveals the source.
“Once he calmed down and realised she’s used their working relationship as the main lead in her memoir, Karl figured the pay parity claims would just go away, and she might end up copping her own barrage of criticism, considering at the time she was offered close to $1.8 million!
“But then the goalposts shifted after Lisa included mention of Karl’s private life. He questions why he’s the star of an autobiography about Lisa’s life – like, what’s the point?”
Lisa, who is on a three-week break from The Project, defended detailing her relationship with Karl.
“What’s out there at the moment looks like I am trying to attack Karl [but] that’s not what I’m doing. I’m just not keeping men’s secrets any more,” she told The Daily Telegraph.
But it was the personal details about meeting his now wife Jasmine Yarbrough, 37, the mother of the couple’s one-year-old daughter Harper, and his split with ex-wife Cassandra Thorburn, 50, that sent him over the edge.
“Karl might be a gregarious larrikin on TV, but when it comes to his brood, he is very protective.
“Both he and Jasmine are at a loss as to why the entire publicity rollout for Lisa’s book relied so heavily on the decade that she shared with Karl on breakfast TV,” says the source.
“Karl is now considering his own tell-all to have the final say. Only then will it be revealed that there really are two sides to every story.”
