Television personality Karl Stefanovic has delivered an epic smackdown of gossip website The Daily Mail, slamming an article that incorrectly implied he was cheating on his girlfriend with a work colleague.
In an emotional piece to camera, The Today Show host said he usually ignores salacious and sometimes incorrect stories about himself, but draws the line in the sand when it comes to those around him.
The article in question showed Stefanovic carrying a 12-pack of rum and claimed he was checking into a "humble caravan park with a Channel Nine colleague" while his girlfriend was "nowhere to be seen".
However, on Friday morning Stefanovic set the record straight.
"The inference [is that] I'm a drunk," he said. "The real hurt here is for my colleague, a young female colleague. The sleazy suggestion that we're checking in somewhere and that I'm settling in for a long night. Fact: This was work. We were filming a story about our struggling prawn farmers - they deserve a rum or two."
Stefanovic said the producer featured in the story is a committed, hardworking young woman who has always acted professionally and is not deserving of "cheap, lazy, sexist" slurs.
He also said she had been in tears over the past few hours thanks to the trashy article.
"The idea colleagues of the opposite sex can't work together without something going on surely belongs to the 1950s," he said. "And, for most of Australia, it does. But not, it seems, on this website. The Daily Mail has a long, despicable track record of denigrating women."
"Do not slur the reputations of others in your eagerness to throw mud at me." -@KarlStefanovic #9Today pic.twitter.com/v0G7xSBlmu
— The Today Show (@TheTodayShow) June 1, 2017
Stefanovic urged the gossip website to stay clear of incorrect stories about his friends, families and work colleagues.
"Do not slur the reputations of others in your eagerness to throw mud at me," he said. "And if you agree with me, the best thing you can do is never go to that website."
The Daily Mail has previously mocked Stefanovic's co-host Lisa Wilkinson for wearing the same dress four months apart. Late last year, the website also shamed Sunrise host Sam Armytage for wearing so-called "granny pants" on her way to the supermarket.
Stefanovic's smackdown received wide-reaching praise on Friday, and not just from fellow media personalities. Controversial former deputy mayor of Auburn, Salim Mehajer, took to Facebook to label the speech "calculated, emotional and heart-touching".
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