Karl Stefanovic: “Mate….I’m glad those those years are behind me.”

EXCLUSIVE:

He is arguably Nine’s very-own Mr. Clickbait, but Karl Stefanovic is also in a good place where very little fazes him lately.

After all it’s been a busy few years of attention. These days he mostly shrugs off those stories that make a lot out of seemingly-innocuous banter he makes during 3.5 hours of live daily television.

“It doesn’t worry me,” he tells TV Tonight.

“I’ve had clickbait for a long time. It’s not something I think about when I’m on air. You can’t even worry about it.

“As you would know, I am who I am on air and off air. I’m gonna say something and if it gets picked up, it gets picked up. I’m not out there trying to do it.

“I don’t need to stoke the fire, but it’s part of the business now. It’s free content. It’s happening content and generally it’s conversational content and watercooler.”

In 2016 he endured the beginning of two years of headlines around his marriage breakdown, wedding and departure from Today.

“I guess you’re in the limelight and you’re a public person, stuff’s going to get written about. It just surprises me that there was so much, but it is what it is.”

On one occasion there was criticism for leaving a Today broadcast without farewelling the TV audience, to catch a flight to a vacation in Bora Bora.

“I’d organised that months before. In the in the heat of the whatever’s going on, it becomes a big thing when it wasn’t. I was always leaving at that time,” he insists.

“Mate… I’m glad those those years are behind me.”

Indeed, things are looking up.

On Sunday Stefanovic was in the running for the Gold Logie (ultimately won by Nine stablemate Hamish Blake). Today enjoyed a rare victory over Sunrise,for its post-Logies broadcast and next week the show marks 40 years on Nine.

“It’s been a really positive last four weeks for us, on the east coast. We’re winning Brisbane by long way, Sydney again, so we’re fighting our way back. It’s been a funny year. There’s been a lot of different yarns on, there’s been some big news stories. I’m not sure that politics was something our audience particularly liked,” he reveals.

“But it seems to be settling down. And it’s great to be back.”

 Today 5:30am weekdays on Nine.