Richard Wilkins (TV presenter) Bio and Career

Richard Wilkins Biography

Richard Wilkins is a New Zealand Australian TV and radio presenter. He is also the Entertainment Editor for ‘Today’ and an announcer on Smooth FM.

He is also an MC.

Richard Wilkins Age

He was born Richard Stephen Wilkins on June 19, 1954, in Auckland, New Zealand. He is 64 years old as of 2018.

Richard Wilkins Family

No information on his parents, siblings’ and extended family is disclosed to the public.

Richard Wilkins Wife

He has been divorced from three marriages: Collette Dinnigan, Michelle Burke, and Lynette Wilkins.

Richard Wilkins Children

He has five children from all his previous marriages; Christian Wilkins, Estella Sophia Wilkins, Nicholas Wilkins, Adam Wilkins, and Rebecca Wilkins.

Richard Wilkins Education Background

He attended Palmerston North Boys’ High School. He later graduated and joined Wellesley College for his higher education.

Richard Wilkins Career

He brought his band called ‘Wilde and Reckless’ to Australia in 1980. He tored Australia with Grace Jones and also released some tracks.

Wilkins was MTV Australia’s original host when it launched on Nine in 1987, along with Joy Smithers. MTV Australia has set a new music television benchmark in Australia.

He hosted a game show called Keynotes in 1992, a summertime substitute for the Century Sale. He hosted Entertainment Tonight’s Australian version with Marie Patane in 1999. The Sydney New Year’s Eve fireworks telecast was hosted for ten consecutive years.

Wilkins is the editor of Nine Network Entertainment. Richard is presenting daily features and interviews from across the showbiz world on Today.

He presents the annual coverage of The Academy Awards, The Golden Globe Awards and many other special events presented by the Nine Network.

Reporting live on the deaths of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson on June 26, 2009, Wilkins misrepresented actor Jeff Goldblum’s death on Today, though this was later verified as a hoax in the program.

In 2017, with the Nine Network, Wilkins celebrated his 30th anniversary. In January 2017, at the behest of Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, Wilkins co-hosted the annual G’Day USA Gala-the annual Australian event in the United States. Wilkins returned to host the NINE TV network’s ARIA awards from The Star in Sydney in November 2017.

Richard Wilkins Net Worth

He has a net worth of $1.5 million.

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And they said it wouldn’t last… episode two of @ross_greenwood and my YouTube series #ShowBusiness is up now!! ✨

A post shared by Richard Wilkins (@richardwilkins) on Mar 6, 2019 at 11:33pm PST

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Thirty years of Richard Wilkins

Richard Wilkins Interview

‘It was a disaster!’ Richard Wilkins reveals his worst ever celebrity interview – as he leaves the Today show after 24 years

Published: 31st December 2018

Source: https://www.msn.com

Richard Wilkins spent over two decades interviewing some of the worlds biggest stars on Today, before being recently demoted to second-tier show Today Extra.

And during his 24 years on Channel Nine’s breakfast show, there was one celebrity encounter that proved to be memorable for all the wrong reasons.

In his 2011 book ‘Black Ties, Red Carpets, Green Rooms’, the 64-year-old journalist explained how his meeting with U.S. musician Prince did not go as planned.

Richard spoke to Prince backstage at Melbourne’s Rod Laver Arena in 2003, around 13 years before the singer died in 2016.
After multiple requests for an interview, Prince’s PR team said he would only speak to Richard if the segment also included the other eight members of his touring band.

‘”Oh, stop it,” I said, thinking [the publicist] was winding me up,’ Richard wrote in his book, after Prince’s representative explained the conditions of the interview.

Richard then revealed he struggled to squeeze the Today show’s camera crew, Prince and the eight band members into a small room backstage, which the singer apparently ‘insisted on’.
When the entertainment reporter started his interview by asking the band a few easy questions to try to ‘loosen things up’, no-one was offering much in response.

Richard claimed ‘beads of sweat were running down the back of [his] neck’ during the dreary interview, which Nine had already heavily promoted on the Today show.

When Richard spoke to Prince directly and mentioned how his tour came around quickly, the singer simply replied: ‘Yeah, yeah, I guess it did.’
‘Ah f**k! This was going to be an unmitigated disaster and total embarrassment,’ Richard recalled in his book, adding that Prince shied away from further questions.

However, things took a surprising turn when Prince ‘suddenly stopped’ the chat and requested to speak to Richard in private.

Richard claimed that Prince repeatedly apologised for being a ‘bad interview’ and told the journalist he appreciated he was ‘trying so hard’.
‘I just don’t want to say something stupid. I’m so nervous, I’m so shy and everyone else is in there,’ the songwriter apparently said.

After this encounter, Richard and Prince then spoke candidly about the artist’s life, career and behind-the-scenes struggles in private.

But unfortunately for Richard, when they resumed the on-camera interview, Prince went shy again and offered bland responses to questions.

In a surprise turn of events, Richard had actually recorded his candid, off-the-record chat with Prince by accident though the microphone taped to his lapel.
‘To this day, there is an audiotape in my desk of the greatest interview with Prince that has never been heard,’ he wrote in his book.

‘The Prince I met privately wasn’t the hybrid of reclusive mystery man and flamboyant performer I’d experienced. He was genuinely lovely, albeit saddled with crippling shyness as soon as anyone else appeared.’

Richard continued: ‘My personal code of ethics means that tape from that day will always remain in the drawer of my desk. It’s Prince, very much off the record.’
In 2019, Richard will be redeployed to second-tier show Today Extra, but will remain as the overall entertainment editor at Channel Nine.

Nine’s newest star, former Triple J newsreader Brooke Boney, will join the Today show as its primary entertainment reporter.