- Critic slams Karl Stefanovic’s coverage of Paris Olympics
- Lisa Wilkinson’s account liked the tweet, and it did not go unnoticed.
It’s been nearly seven years since Lisa Wilkinson spectacularly quit the Today Show amid a bitter dispute over equal pay, and it seems she’s still not convinced that her former co-star Karl Stefanovic deserves her multimillion-dollar contract with the network.
The former magazine pundit was apparently caught liking a post on X criticising her former breakfast show partner’s performance as Nine’s central presenter at the Paris Olympics.
“I am watching with pain the Channel 9 coverage of the Olympic Games opening ceremony. It is so bad!” read the controversial message.
‘Karl Stefanovic, arrogant, narrow-minded, condescending and a clown, makes everything revolve around himself.’
The apparent endorsement may have gone unnoticed, given that the platform no longer openly discloses which users “liked” posts other than the original author.
But Wilkinson’s seemingly surreptitious support didn’t stay silent for long: the critic’s creator, a Free Palestine supporter who simply goes by the name “Chris,” boasted that he had agreed with her unflattering assessment of Stefanovic.
“Karl thought he was clever by saying that there are fewer Olympic athletes than neurosurgeons. That seems to be a pretty big difference, given that there are 50,000 neurosurgeons in the world and 2,900 athletes. What a strange comparison!” he wrote, before completing the post with a clown face emoji to underline his assessment of Stefanovic.
“Lisa agrees and she knows it,” he added, along with an image proving that his account had indeed backed up his views.
Karl Stefanovic and Lisa Wilkinson co-starred on Nine’s Today for 10 years before she left the show. And the thumbs up she gave X proved what she really thinks of him.
Wilkinson’s social media account was caught liking a post criticizing her former co-star
The post’s creator boasted that Wilkinson’s like was the highlight of his day.
Clearly proud, in a separate post he went on to say: “Lisa Wilkinson liking this tweet about Karl Stefanovic made my day!”
The posts quickly raised suspicions among industry insiders, fueling a flurry of speculation about what might have sparked the disagreement on social media.
However, it seems no one was more surprised than Wilkinson herself.
It is understood she had no idea that her account had liked the post, and disliked it as soon as she found out.
The Logie-winning star left Nine’s breakfast show and bolted to rival Ten and landed a job co-presenting The Project in 2017 after 10 years on the Today show.
Her bitter split with the network came after she faced accusations that she had only earned a fraction of her co-star’s salary.
It’s not the first time Today show stars, past and present, have been embroiled in an embarrassing social media mess involving unflattering comments about their colleagues.
Five years ago, in January 2019, Stefanovic also made headlines after two comments on the Today show’s official Instagram page were liked by people mocking its then-new line-up, which included Deborah Knight and Georgie Gardner.
One comment liked on her account read: “I won’t watch it. Well Miss Gardiner (sic) got away with it. Pathetic, smile, agree and laugh. That’s all they do.”
A second comment “liked” on her page read: “Channel (Nueve), the audience wants answers.”
Stefanovic was quick to blame rogue hackers for his account activities in 2019.
The incident occurred after Stefanovic was briefly “rested” from the show as Nine executives attempted to take Today in a new direction, only to be hastily recalled after the show suffered a disastrous ratings decline.
The TV host wanted to distance himself from his account’s activities at the time and posted a statement on Instagram in which he blamed a malicious social media hacker for the fraudulent likes.
“While I was fishing, my Instagram account was hacked. I am looking into this with the authorities and will be back soon. Karlos,” he wrote.
