Karl Stefanovic has taken an apparent parting swipe at his Today Show co-hosts after his firing from Channel Nine.
The TV star, 51, didn’t hold back in a scathing new interview with Piers Morgan, blasting mainstream morning TV networks for employing “beige personalities” who are too terrified of advertiser blowback.
Karl’s abrupt departure from the broadcast after 21 years follows a cloud of controversy over his now-deleted podcast interview with British far-right activist Tommy Robinson.
While Nine signalled that Karl’s exit had been a joint agreement in their initial statement, Karl referred to himself as having been “sacked” on The Karl Stefanovic Show.
The interview was filmed in London just two hours after Karl found out that he had been fired from Nine, and he didn’t hold back as he issued a scathing judgement on the quality of morning TV.
Discussing mainstream media and free-to-air TV, he argued, “If the product is becoming so beige because they’re so worried about blowback from advertisers or whoever this mob is, you end up on air with beige personalities.”
Though he didn’t name anyone directly, it could have been seen as a thinly veiled swipe at his own colleagues on the Today Show.
However, he was also full of praise for his co-host, Sarah Abo, who is a close friend of his, as he shared his sadness that he wasn’t able to properly say goodbye to her on air.
In another bombshell, Karl also claimed that he’d actually told Nine that he would be quitting Today at the end of the year, when his contract ended, several months ago.
“I told Nine that I was leaving the Today Show two or three months ago, and they said, ‘Can you give us time to get someone in to test the waters on who is going to be your replacement?’,” he explained.
“So I gave them a huge chunk of time, and I don’t know when they were going to announce who was going to be my replacement. At the end of the year, I was going to sail off into the sunset.”
However, his exit came earlier than planned amid uproar over his interview with Robinson, which Karl has adamantly defended, defiantly arguing that his show is about “free speech”.
“I’m not going to stop, and I’m not going to roll up in a ball on the side of the f**king highway. I will get up, and I’ll get things done, and we’ll move on,” he added of his firing.
“There’s a part of me that also feels free, to really have my own freedom.”
When asked how he felt about his abrupt exit from Nine, Karl choked back tears as he said the hardest thing for him had been the impact on his wife, Jasmine, who has been trolled amid the criticism against him.
“I’m a bit discombobulated. For me, my first thoughts go to my family, I think those things are really hard for family to hear. Jasmine was really upset at first, she was like, “I don’t understand how you can do an interview and get sacked as a result of it’. It puts pressure on family members, she’s copped heat on social media,” he shared.
“My wife, because she puts up with a lot, and her finding out this stuff and having to deal with me, because I’m a lot, and I’m in the public eye a lot, and I really do work hard, and I’m away a bit. She knows what I’m trying to do with this podcast, and I’m doing that and that, all for the family, but she’s on her own a lot.
“For me, to hear her upset, it was the hardest thing.”
Following Karl’s exit from Nine, his radio career has also come to a halt, with reports swirling that he is set to be axed from ARN.
The Sydney Morning Herald has claimed that Karl will not be returning to his weekly radio show, The Long Weekend, with Eddie McGuire on the Gold Network.
Neither ARN nor Karl has addressed the rumours, and New Idea has contacted ARN for comment.
New Idea previously revealed that Karl had cut his UK trip short to fly back to Australia for crisis talks with ARN over his future at the network.
“The timing couldn’t have been worse,” one industry source told us.
“Karl came home expecting some difficult conversations but he was effectively dealing with two separate crises at once.”
It has been a turbulent time for ARN after Kyle Sandilands and Jackie “O” Henderson’s KIIS FM radio show was sensationally cancelled due to an on-air row.
Read more about the controversy engulfing Karl here.
