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While the TODAY show marked 35 years on air on Friday, there was one Channel Nine alum noticeably absent from the celebrations.
Studio 10’s Jessica Rowe didn’t attend the reunion, despite her two-year stint co-hosting the breakfast show with Karl Stefanovic in 2004.
Speaking with Daily Mail, a rep for the star confirmed that the 47-year-old ‘politely declined’ the invitation because of ‘work commitments.’
But many suggest her unusual absence is due to the controversy that plagued her dismissal from the network back in 2006.
The TV veteran was famously sacked from her post while on maternity leave and later replaced by Sarah Murdoch.
At the time, it was alleged by Former Nine News Director Mark Llewellyn that Channel Nine’s CEO Eddie Maguire had said he wanted Rowe “boned.”
Maguire later denied these claims, but the journalist admits she still reflects on the incident as a “terrible time” in her life.
“It was not helped by public abuse, abuse from within the network that I worked at and abuse from someone who was in charge of that particular network,” she said during an episode of Studio 10 last year.
Former presenters Tracy Grimshaw, Liz Hayes and Georgie Gardener were all present in the studio for the occasion, with Rowe only appearing briefly in a video montage.
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