Net Worth: c.$7.5 Million
Age: 64
DOB: Born: 19 December 1959
Birthplace: Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia
Lisa Wilkinson AM is a well-known and controversial Australian journalist, TV presenter and magazine editor who, in recent years, has polarised the nation with the way she has gone about supporting Brittany Higgins.
That aside, she is widely recognised for her work on several television shows on the Nine Network, including the Today programme, which she co-hosted for over a decade, predominantly with Karl Stefanovic. Elsewhere, she has feature on the Seven Network on the show ‘Weekend Sunrise’ between 2005 and 2007. She also appeared on Network Ten’s primetime show ‘The Project’ during the period 2018 to 2022. On top of that she also has a narration role in ‘Ambulance Australia’.
Early Life and Magazine Career
Wilkinson was born in the New South Wales town of Wollongong, although she spent most of her youth in the Sydney western suburb of Campbelltown.
She went to the Campbelltown Performing Arts High School (formerly Campbelltown High School) and shortly after leaving there took up a role at Dolly magazine. Not long after, when she was just 21, she accepted the position of editor there. Whilst in the role, she developed a knack of discovering young female talent, including one, Nicole Kidman, who at the time was a virtual unknown.
During her time at Dolly she tripled the circulation of the magazine, which caught the attention of Kerry Packer who personally approached her to become the editor of Cleo, a lifestyle magazine under the umbrella of the Australian Consolidated Press.
On accepting the role, one of her first acts was to get rid of the publication’s male centrefold. She also mentored the likes of Deborah Thomas and Mia Freedman who were both up and coming in the field of journalism.
In a decade-long stint, Wilkinson became Cleo’s longest-serving editor and again oversaw a substantial increase in the circulation growth of the magazine. After the publication opened titles in Asia and New Zealand, Wilkinson became its International Editor-in-Chief.
Moving on from Cleo she held the role of Editor-at-large of The Australian version of Women’s Weekly, over the period of 1999 to 2007. Later, in 2015, Wilkinson was approached by Arianna Huffington to assume the role of Editor-at-large for the Aussie version of the Huffington Post – a position she maintained until 2018.
Television
During her time in the publishing industry, Wilkinson also embarked on a television career towards the end of the 1990s. At this time she was a regular panellist on the TV show Beauty and the Beast, which ran on Foxtel and Network Ten. She also hosted The Morning Shift, which aired on Channel 7 over the course of the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000.
In 2005, Wilkinson anchored the Seven Network TV show Weekend Sunrise, initially with Chris Reason and then with Andrew O’Keefe. Two years later, she then took on the role of co-host with Karl Stefanovic on the Nine Network’s Today show, replacing the outgoing Jessica Rowe. Lisa was Karl’s fifth co-host in just over two years. However, despite this she brought stability to the show and over the next nine years ensured it became the highest rated breakfast television show in Australia.
In October 2017, Wilkinson tendered her resignation from the Today show and the Nine Network, effective immediately, after a bitter contract dispute with her management. This occurred as a result of the significant disparity in pay with her male colleague, Karl. At the time, she announced on Twitter that she was leaving, before confirming that she was joining Channel Ten merely an hour later.
Wilkinson revealed in her memoir of 2021, titled It ‘Wasn’t Meant to Be Like This’, that she had been fired after requesting the network employ a fairer pay structure.
The following year, Lisa signed up for The Project, a TV current affairs programme that ran every night on Network 10. However, she resigned her role on this show after a year in which she was involved in several controversial moments.
Carols by Candlelight
Between the period of 2008 and 2016, Wilkinson co-hosted Carols by Candlelight on the Nine Network, replacing Ray Martin who went into semi-retirement. Lisa was joint-presenter with Karl Stefanovic for the first four years, before David Campbell took over from him in 2013. Sonia Kruger replaced Wilkinson after she severed ties with the Nine Network.
Other
Wilkinson presented the Andrew Olle Media Lecture in 2013 about the media’s treatment of women. In doing so, she became the first female journalist to make such an address since 1997 when Jana Wendt did it.
In 2017, The Daily Mail caused a stir by commenting on Lisa Wilkinson wearing a blouse on TV which she had worn four months previously, despite Karl Stefanovic, her co-host, having worn the same suit for a year, every day, without anyone saying something. Wilkinson addressed it in a tweet and purposely wore the same blouse the next day. In solidarity, other colleagues, male and female wore the blouse on TV in the subsequent days.
In 2021, Wilkinson was named a finalist in the Walkley Awards for a second time, on account of her interview with Brittany Higgins, a political staffer at Parliament House in Canberra, who claimed she had been raped on the office couch of Linda Reynolds, a Federal Government Minister in 2019. This story resulted in a full cultural review being carried out by Kate Jenkins, the Federal Sex
Discrimination Commissioner, of the treatment of women in the workplace at Parliament House.
Personal life
Wilkinson has been married to the journalist, author and former international rugby union player Peter FitzSimons. They have three grown-up children together, including a couple of sons and a daughter.
In 2021 she published an autobiography titled ‘It Wasn’t Meant to Be Like This’.
Honours
Over the course of her career, Wilkinson has received a number of honours and recognition.
On Australia Day in 2016, she was made a Member of the Order of Australia in the honours list for significant service to the broadcast and print media industry as a presenter and journalist, as well as various women’s and youth health groups.
The following year, a portrait of Wilkinson by the artist Peter Smeeth won the Packing Room Prize. It was also a finalist in the Archibald Prize.
Wilkinson was also a key part of The Project team in 2022 that won two Logie Awards.