Lisa Wilkinson v. Network Ten LIVE BLOG: Explosive insight into The Project star’s relationship with Channel 10 is expected to be laid bare in court

The strained relationship between Lisa Wilkinson and Network Ten is expected to come to light in federal court on Tuesday.

Wilkinson will claim that the network removed her as host of The Project amid the collapse of Bruce Lehrmann’s first criminal trial in June 2022 and the fallout surrounding her Logies speech just days before the hearing.

ACT Chief Justice Lucy McCallum was concerned Wilkinson’s speech would bias a jury against Mr Lehrmann and postponed the trial until October 2022, and castigated Wilkinson for making the speech in the first place.

Wilkinson will argue in court Tuesday that the network gave her speech an approval sign but then blamed her for the public fallout.

Wilkinson stepped down as host of The Project at the time, citing ‘toxicity’ in the media.

However, it is clear that she will claim that Logies’ speech was the real reason.

Those details were never revealed because legal advice between Network Ten and Wilkinson was protected by legal privilege, but that was waived for the counterclaim.

When Mr Lehrmann filed the defamation suit against the network, naming Wilkinson as the first defendant, she hired her own lawyer, Sue Chrysanthou, to defend her rather than hiring Ten’s lawyers.

She did not feel that the network had her best interests at heart.

The case will span Tuesday and Wednesday and was initially scheduled to hear only Wilkinson’s civil case against the network.

But after seeing the documentation prepared by the parties, Judge Lee decided that there was new evidence relevant to the main claim of defamation.