Lisa Wilkinson: “I’m Not Done Yet”
Lisa Wilkinson’s battles, both public and private, are revealed in her new autobiography. She talks to Ute Junker
Lisa Wilkinson is through with keeping secrets. In her autobiography, It Wasn’t Meant To Be Like This, she puts her life under the microscope in a most surprising way, talking about everything from childhood bullies and sexual assault to her miscarriages and her battle with self-doubt.
“You can get a one-dimensional view of someone when they see you through a camera lens,” she says. “I wanted young women in particular, to know that none of us gets there without struggles, so I decided I had to tell all of my stories.”
She means what she says. It Wasn’t Meant To Be Like This, doesn’t just take in all the highlights of her career in magazines and television – it also delves into parts of her past that many others might choose not to explore. That includes the intense childhood bullying that led her to drop her dreams of becoming a ballet dancer, and almost saw her quit school before her HSC.
As a teenager, Lisa writes, she had feelings that she was unable to share with anyone: “what those punches in the playground felt like in front of all my friends. Or about Therese’s disgusting dad and what he did to me. Why so many times I’d wanted to just disappear between the cracks.”
Even as an adult, with a media career that was going from strength to strength, Lisa continued to struggle with self-doubt. “For me, self-doubt was a very real thing,” she tells me. “I had to lift myself out of that self-doubt, to believe that I was capable of doing good work. I focused on the promise I made to myself as I walked out that high school gate, that I would never let anyone define who I was or what I was I was capable of.”
One memory that she was initially not going to include in the book was her experience of sexual assault by a friend’s father as a teenager. She changed her mind after working with Brittany Higgins earlier this year.
“What I saw when I was part of helping Brittany Higgins tell her story, seeing how many women have come forward and told their stories, that was when I decided to tell my story.”
““There are powerful forces at work behind the scenes that try to shut up the uppity women.””
Don’t get the idea that this book is heavy going, however. There is plenty of joy – the joy of family, of friends, of career – and also behind-the-scenes insights from her media career including cameo appearances from some big names: lunch with Kerry Packer, dinner with David Frost and Clive James, even a date with Kiss guitarist Ace Frehley
Appointed editor of Dolly at the age of 21, Lisa went on to edit Cleo before switching to television, where she co-hosted first Seven Network’s Weekend Sunrise, and then the Nine Network’s Today show.
Ten years fronting Today came to a crashing halt in 2017 when she was abruptly dropped in the middle of pay negotiations. She was instantly scooped up by Channel Ten’s The Project, where she remains today.
Reading the memoir, it’s clear that magazines held a special place in Lisa’s heart, with her account full of the pleasure of satisfying work and supportive friendships.
“I have this incredible gratitude that we were there in heyday of magazines. The connection we had with Australian women was so strong,” she says. “I had a huge gathering for everyone I worked with at Cleo over 10 years, and the bonds between us all were so still strong,” she says.
Most of all, she says, she is thankful to the people throughout her career who gave her a chance – from Kerry Packer to Tom Malone, her first executive producer at Today.
“There is nothing quite like having someone believe in you when you don’t quite believe in yourself. It’s why I’ve worked really hard across the course of my career to make sure I can hand that joy on to young women and young men.
“The last thing you want to do, when you have experienced that feeling, it to keep the feeling to yourself. You want to hand it on. There is such joy that comes from seeing others get that opportunity, to take it on and to fly.”
For now, Lisa is determined to push forward. “There are still a lot of injustices out there,” she says. “You only have to look at the push back by the government on the Brittany Higgins saga. [She] was let down horribly by three of the most powerful women in government in the country.”
Lisa’s memoir includes an account of her dismissal by Nine – an account that saw her viciously attacked by parts of the media. It only demonstrates, Lisa says, that women speaking out still makes people uncomfortable.
“There are powerful forces at work behind the scenes that try to shut up the uppity women, but I’m not done yet,” she says. “We’re fooling ourselves if we think that everything is fixed. We do have to link arms with each other to keep storming the joint. The joint is largely constructed by men; it’s time we did some renovations.”
It Wasn’t Meant To Be Like This, by Lisa Wilkinson, is published by HarperCollins, $45, and is out now.