Lisa Wilkinson has responded to suggestions she could return to the Today desk as a fill-in co-host eight years after her acrimonious departure from the breakfast show.
Before an appearance on the show she hosted for a decade earlier this month, current co-host Sarah Abo joked on social media that Wilkinson, 66, should be her replacement for her upcoming maternity leave.
“Ooh this will be fun!! Cannot wait!! Have you cleared your calendar for August..? Â xx,” she wrote on an Instagram post promoting Wilkinson’s April 15 appearance.Â
Wilkinson responded: “Funny you should say that Sarah…I’m remarkably free these days! xxx.”
However, the mother-of-three seemed to cool on the idea during an interview with Woman’s Day this week.
When asked if she had any plans to return to TV, Lisa replied, “Right now it’s all about [my new book The Titanic Story of] Evelyn. I’m travelling the country giving talks on the book, which is a joy.
“There has also been some interest in taking Evelyn’s story to the screen, so we’ll see.”
Wilkinson’s exit from the Nine Network in 2017 was widely seen as strained, following a contract dispute and tensions over pay disparity with co-host Karl, as later detailed in her 2021 memoir It Wasn’t Meant to Be Like This.
After leaving Today, Wilkinson went on to anchor Channel 10’s The Project before becoming embroiled in a high-profile defamation case brought by Lehrmann.
Addressing the recent legal developments, Stefanovic this month asked how she had been navigating her time away from the spotlight.
“How have you been? How have you been navigating that period of a break for yourself?” he said.
“Well, we got a great outcome last week, the appeal was thrown out, I’m talking about Bruce Lehrmann’s appeal, and it was thrown out. So the outcome I think everyone wanted has now been achieved,” Wilkinson replied.
“And I didn’t know that it was going to happen on Thursday. So I feel like that happening on Thursday and the book coming out today feels like a really perfect alignment.”
Her comments refer to the dismissal of Lehrmann’s appeal in the Federal Court proceedings related to his defamation case against Network Ten and Wilkinson.
Stefanovic kept the mood light, joking about whether he made it into her latest book.
“No I left you out of this one, you’ll be pleased to hear,” Wilkinson said.
“That whole period for me- I mean, we’ve obviously had our ups and downs but we had a lot of ups. And it was a very special period too,” he added.
The Today show’s Instagram account shared a clip of Karl and Lisa embracing before going on air, alongside the caption: “Nothing but love for @lisawilkinson.”