Karl Stefanovic responds to Ally Langdon's departure
Karl Stefanovic has responded to the news that his Today Show co-host Ally Langdon would be leaving to take on the job of hosting A Current Affair, joking that she was “turning her back” on breakfast television.
Stefanovic kept up the jokes throughout Monday’s episode, the first since it was announced that Langdon would take on the hosting gig over the weekend and follow on from long-term host Tracy Grimshaw.
“Alison Langdon, everyone – the new host of A Current Affair, of course. Congratulations, Ally,” he announced at the start of the show.
“I wasn’t sure what you would do this morning … I knew it would be something,” Langdon replied.
He quipped that he’d “spent the whole weekend working” on his short acknowledgement of Langdon’s new role, which starts on January 30.
“I could tell. The production value had your name all over it,” Langdon quipped.
“That’s all the Today show’s production value is. That part of the reason you have moved on?” he asked, before telling Langdon that they had a “big week planned for you … don’t go anywhere, not as if you can anyway”.
The jokes didn’t stop there either, with Stefanovic declaring his co-host was “turning her back” on breakfast television during an interview with Jacqui Lambie, and quipping that it was “out with the old and in with the new” following a promo teasing Sarah Abo as Langdon’s replacement.
“When you say things like that I can’t wait to go,” she said.
“And we can’t wait to shove you off. It’s going to be a wonderful week of celebrations,” he responded.
Further into the episode, Stefanovic took another playful dig at his co-host and the “countdown” until she leaves.
“The countdown is on for Ally to leave breakfast television. We’ve cleared her desk, taken her car park and thrown out her Jimmy Choos... and good riddance, I say,” he said, before claiming that her time on the show only equated to one year, not three, “when you take out all her leave and sick leave”.
While it was a show filled with plenty of jokes, there was also plenty of emotion too.
After she was joined by her replacement, 60 Minutes reporter Sarah Abo, Langdon broke down in tears while speaking about how bittersweet it was that her late father-in-law, Mike Willesee, wasn’t alive to see her take on the same role he had.
“It’s a pretty special thing to the family if I’m honest. A special thing for Mike which has sort of surprised me how much emotion he’s had around it,” she said, referring to her husband, Michael Willesee Jr.
“There’s the thought of how nice it would be had he been here,” she said, before the tears began.
As for her replacement, Langdon shared some advice for how to deal with Stefanovic.
“Call me for a counselling session and I’ll say, ‘What did he do now?’ That’s how I’ll answer the phone,” she told Abo.
In a statement released on Sunday, Stefanovic described his co-host as “extraordinary” and referenced the brutal knee injury she suffered during a segment on watersports in early 2021.
“Ally has been extraordinary over the last three years. Battling through some tough personal physical obstacles to broadcast to the country during really difficult times. She’s an incredible broadcaster and I’ll miss working with her tremendously. Though, I won’t miss her dancing,” he said.
The breakfast show host said his new co-host was a “brilliant interviewer” with the “most wicked sense of humour”.
“I can’t wait for the country to see all of those wonderful qualities every day at breakfast,” he said.
Image: Today