In the cutthroat world of television, these stars certainly aren’t afraid to ruffle some feathers.
Karl skips out on Nine’s biggest names
He recently celebrated his 48th birthday, and it appears that Karl Stefanovic was too partied-out to celebrate the achievements of his Nine colleagues!
The Today host was a no-show at Nine’s prestigious event honouring veteran stars Liz Hayes and Tracy Grimshaw for their 40 years at Nine, along with newsreader Peter Overton’s 30th anniversary.
Despite being spotted in Sydney with cartons of beer, Karl skipped out on the noteworthy event, which was held at the Sydney Opera House, leaving his co-host Ally Langdon to MC the event to a room jam-packed with Nine stars – past and present – including Georgie Gardner, Richard Wilkins, Steve Liebmann, Jessica Rowe and Tara Brown.
Karl’s no-show serves as a lost opportunity to promote Today, particularly after their rival Sunrise recently trumped them in the ratings for 2022.
The Seven brekkie show, fronted by Natalie Barr and David Koch, notched up its 19th year as the number one show in its timeslot, winning every week of the ratings calender so far across all five capital cities.
Tristan’s wife set to replace Sarah!
In one of the bolder industry moves, Ten is set to make a massive gamble on Studio 10 from this week, with Tristan McManus’ wife Tahyna replacing Sarah Harris!
The former actress, 36, will be filling in for Sarah as she makes the jump to 10 News First to replace Sandra Sully for three days.
The head-scratching moves comes at a particularly prickly time for the network after Sarah, 41, made a hilarious swipe at her own network during an industry event last week.
“So this is what it’s like to have an audience,” the presenter joked to the packed room at the Kennedy Awards, seemingly poking fun at her own show’s lacklustre ratings.
While the room was said to have erupted in laughter at the joke, Ten executives may have found it hard to enjoy the humour, particularly after the show’s mass redundancies in 2020.
Matt takes a swipe at ‘bland Nigella’
They’re meant to be close culinary friends, but My Kitchen Rules star Matt Preston had some very choice words for co-host Nigella Lawson recently.
Talking on Nova’s Fitzy & Wippa show last week, Matt, 60, likened the British home cook superstar, 62, to his “annoying little sister”.
“She likes a little pop at you,” he says, adding, “which is why I love working with her. She’s mischievous.”
The former MasterChef judge, who replaced the domestic goddess on MKR last week, then dug the knife in further, saying, “You think she’s going to be a bit anodyne, a bit bland, and then she’s actually, you know, spirited and fiery… That side of Nigella is brilliant to work with.”
Georgie checks in… Chrissie & Lisa check out?
The game of musical chairs over at The Project continues with regular stand-in Georgie Tunny scoring a fulltime spot on the desk!
Georgie, 31, is said to have delighted Ten executives when she filled in for Carrie Bickmore alongside Chrissie Swan earlier this year.
While the network has confirmed she’ll be “producing and reporting” in her new role, many are asking what this will mean for Chrissie, 48, and Lisa Wilkinson, 62, who recently returned to the panel.