Brittany Higgins’ angry letter to Lisa Wilkinson

Brittany Higgins sent an angry letter to Lisa Wilkinson after discovering that the unused footage from her first interview on The Project had been used to create a second program – without her permission.

The interview, in which the former Liberal staffer went public with her alleged rape in Parliament House in 2019, was originally broadcast on Channel Ten on 15 February 2021.

Mrs Higgins sent a letter to Wilkinson five days later, calling on the TV presenter for using footage not used in the first program to make another.

The letter, obtained by The Australian, began with Ms Higgins telling Wilkinson how ‘great’ it was that her interview ‘resonated with the Australian public’, adding that she was ‘strengthened by their support’.

But her tone quickly changed when she went to address the follow-up program.

“As I discussed with your producer Angus earlier this week [Llewellyn] as I declined his approach for a second interview, I do not wish to participate in any further media interviews at this stage,” she wrote.

Ms Higgins said the ‘pressure’ on her was ‘impossibly intense’ and there were already ‘serious consequences’ for herself, her family and her partner, David Sharaz.

“While I understand you have the contractual rights to my original interview, I was never told at the time that you would air more than one program detailing my attack,” she said.

“I am therefore really disturbed and disappointed that when I told Angus that I didn’t want another interview on this matter, you would have put one together anyway from footage you filmed for the first interview but didn’t use.”

Brittany Higgins is pictured interviewing Lisa Wilkinson on The Project in 2021

She told the TV presenter that she had “been very good so far” but stressed that she did not want to appear in any further media interviews.

Ms Higgins told Wilkinson that if the follow-up episode “goes ahead and this material continues to air, knowing how strongly I oppose it, I will be forced to issue my own media statement (and this email) making it clear that I was writing to you and asked not to do it because of my fragile mental health, but you did it anyway.”

A second program was not broadcast.

A week after the exchange, Ms. Higgins wrote to Wilkinson again to say she had only just watched The Project segment because “I just couldn’t do it until now.”

She then agreed with Wilkinson that there were more details “that may be of interest” in the second program.

Ms Higgins then asked Wilkinson to include details of why she brought forward her allegations.