Lisa Wilkinson has been having a hard time of late. With an onslaught of professional mishaps, coupled with her mother’s death and her son’s latest move overseas, the 58-year-old TV host has been through a tough couple of months that has left her feeling heartbroken.
Career-wise, after quitting her slot on the Today show earlier this year, things have not gone to plan for Lisa.
Channel hopping to Network Ten’s The Project in January has not all been rosy with the show’s ratings on a downward spiral. Dropping to almost half of January’s audience size in March, Lisa’s arrival on the primetime slot is not proving a hit with viewers.
Worse still, the ongoing tension between Lisa and co-host Carrie Bickmore has reached boiling point, with rumours Carrie is looking to quit the show. Well-placed Ten sources told New Idea that network bosses were in ‘damage control’ to try and stop Carrie from walking out, ‘panicking’ that their Logie-winning golden girl would exit the show.
The mum-of-two reportedly became increasingly unhappy about Lisa’s role on the show, angry that she’s being sidelined while new host Lisa was getting her pick of celebrity interviews and junkets.
With a cloud already hanging over her head, matters worsened for Lisa when she was then forced to dispel claims she left Today to start her own skincare company ‘as a mixed-race person’.
‘This is complete BS! It is a scam. DO NOT hit link & DO NOT give them credit card details,’ she furiously tweeted.
‘But the dumb-ass quote supposedly from me is priceless: “If you have a face and your face has skin, [this company] will work for you… As a mixed-race person, that is the first thing I made sure of,”’ she added.
Amid her frustrations, Lisa made an emotional confession on The Project, revealing that she had been bullied as a child and it was the ‘most awful, humiliating moment’ she had experienced in her life.
‘I felt so humiliated and so small as a result of it that I thought if I keep it as much as I can to myself, even though sometimes half the school would be surrounding me because the toughest girl in the school would want to fight me,’ she said on the show, later revealing she ‘didn’t want to excel at anything’ when she was a child.
‘If I was doing well at something, that meant that I stood out and became a target,’ she said. ‘It’s the most awful, humiliating moment – moments – I’ve ever experienced in my life, and I really feel for kids.’
Then to add to the heartbreak of the past, a few days after her frank confessions Lisa’s mother Beryl sadly passed away.
The journalist took to Instagram to share her loss in an emotionally fueled post.
With a photo of her, her three kids and mum Beryl, Lisa wrote:
‘Farewell to my sweet, beautiful mum, Beryl. You were an angel, a fighter, and a devoted mum and grandma right to the end. Be at gentle peace now. xxx.’
With great admiration, Lisa spoke of her mother in previous interviews – revealing her grandmother was a ‘chronic alcoholic’, which meant Beryl had been shuffled between orphanages while growing up.
A week later, the mother-of-three had to say goodbye to another special person in her life – her second child, 21-year-old son Louis – before he jetted off for a trip overseas.
Taking to social media to farewell him and vent her sorrows, the veteran TV personality shared a photo and message with her fans to lament his departure.
‘Farewell dinner for number two son as he heads overseas (and we drown him in travel tips, safety warnings and more hugs than he knows what to do with).
‘Travel safe sweetheart, don’t forget to write… and have the time of your life!’
Fans noticed the mother’s heartbreak in the post and attempted to ease her concerns, assuring her he would no doubt write.
But with so many losses to endure over the past few months, Lisa will understandably be shaken.
The only hope is that things will get better for the TV personality soon.
For the full story see this weeks issue of New Idea – out now!
