Richard Wilkins is one of the Australian entertainment industryโs most popular personalities, and heโs interviewed everyone whoโs anyone in Hollywood.
But what many fans of the Today Show star might not know, is that Wilkins is the father of a gorgeous man Adam, who has Down syndrome.
The 64-year-old conceived Adam on the night of his 18th birthday, with his then 16-year-old girlfriend, in New Zealand.
Wilkins opened about his familyโs experience on the Today Show in March last year, on World Down Syndrome Day.
โI was only 18 when Adam was born [and] his mum was just 16, very unusual for Down syndrome people to be born to such young parents. It was a shock to be a parent let alone of a Down syndrome child,โ Wilkins told Today Extra hosts Sonia Kruger and David Campbell at the time.
โIโm prepared to admit that I wasnโt the greatest Dad back in the day. I didnโt really know how to handle it,โ he said.
โI was getting on with my life and career, I wanted to travel the world and make music and do that sort of stuff, and it was with some reluctance that after about a year we put Adam in a home.
โPeople said you can have him adopted. But I said โNo he is always going to be my sonโ and I want a relationship with him. He has had great people in his life over the years.โ
Wilkins went on to describe Adam as โmy rockโ and said โto have a down syndrome person in your family is an absolute joy.โ
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Adam, now 45, was born in 1972 in the New Zealand city of Palmerston North, where Wilkins had recently completed high school.
Wilkins has previously opened up about how Adamโs arrival shocked his 18-year-old self.
โBack in those days, hubbies werenโt exactly encouraged to be in the delivery room cutting umbilical cords. But when I first saw Adam, I just instinctively knew,โ he told Womanโs Day in 2012.
โI guess it hits you pretty hard โ with a thud, actually. I remember having a lot of tests done on me to see what Iโd done wrong. I almost wanted to believe that there was something wrong with me โ something that Iโd passed on. But the tests all came back clear as a bell.
โI donโt know what I would have done if I had known in advance that Adam was Down syndrome.
โWell, I probably do know what we would have done and that would have been a dreadful mistake. Blessings come in unlikely packages and he is such a joy.โ
In 2014, the TV presenter told the Daily Mail that he still feels โguiltyโ for putting his first son in a home.
โI still feel guilty for not being there all the time and for not being the pin-up boy for father of the year,โ he said.
โHeโs happy and healthy and living in New Zealand, but he wouldnโt be if it wasnโt for people who had helped us along the way.โ
โI was still there for him any day of the week, but I had to relinquish everyday care to others.โ
WATCH BELOW: Richard Wilkins talks about his son Christian
Wilkins shares five children with four different mothers โ Adam, 45, Rebecca, 35, Nick, 33, Christian, 23, and Estella, 14, whose mother is fashion designer Collette Dinnigan.
He is currently dating Virginia Burmeister, 52, the ex-wife of investment banker, Mark Burmeister.