Lisa Wilkinson responds as actor says she mugged him during interview

Lisa Wilkinson and The Project have been forced to clear their name after a recent guest accused the show of “mugging” him during an interview earlier this week.

As you may recall, actor Richard Dreyfuss appeared on The Project and was questioned about the current #MeToo campaign and his alleged sexual misconduct. A day later, he appeared on rival network Channel Nine’s Today Extra where he claimed he and guest Kathleen Turner were invited on The Project for a “light, friendly chat” but things didn’t turn out as he’d thought they would.

“I was mugged the other night in Sydney, Australia. Not by a petty thief, but by the host and hostesses of a talk show called The Project,” the Jaws star explained.

He questioned why The Project kept their real questions secret and claimed the show never asked him to have the chat they wanted to have. He said he would have said yes if they’d asked him properly and accused the show of choosing to “commit a breach of ethical behaviour meant to be malignant and sly and known as wrong by every journalist in the world”.

He also claimed the presenters involved would “continue to confuse what is right and what is wrong behaviour”.

Wilkinson took to Twitter and claimed The Project had given Dreyfuss’ publicist warning they were going to question him about the #MeToo movement.

“We wrote to Mr Dreyfuss’ publicist 3days prior to our Sunday @theprojecttv i/v informing we would ask about #metoo allegations against him & his statement. If he didn’t want to discuss it, we were happy to have Kathleen Turner alone. We were assured in writing he was OK with it,” she tweeted.

We wrote to Mr Dreyfuss’ publicist 3days prior to our Sunday @theprojecttv i/v informing we would ask about #metoo allegations against him & his statement. If he didn’t want to discuss it, we were happy to have Kathleen Turner alone. We were assured in writing he was OK with it. https://t.co/59fqHhwKF4

— Lisa Wilkinson (@Lisa_Wilkinson) June 21, 2018

The issue was also addressed on Thursday’s episode of The Project. Although Wilkinson wasn’t present, the other hosts gave their version of what happened.

Hamish Macdonald said the show didn’t trick their guest into saying anything.

“We did not mug Richard Dreyfuss. I have to say I’m shocked and a bit disappointed in this whole thing,” he said. “I don’t really understand it.

Read more: Lisa Wilkinson: ‘Women are afraid that men will kill them’

“Some things that are worth pointing out. His people were very clearly told that we intended to ask questions about allegations that had been made about him and that he’d spoken about in the past in that written statement.”

Macdonald said The Project had emails to prove they had informed Dreyfuss’ team they were going to ask these questions.

“Don’t forget this is a man that publicly said in the 1970s at the height of his fame he disrespected himself and women and ignored his own ethics so as journalists, there was just no way that we could not ask him about it,” Macdonald continued.

He also said Dreyfuss was given the option in writing of not appearing on The Project if he didn’t want to discuss the topic. He also accused the star of “playing the victim” and said it was hard to understand. He added the 70-year-old gave a “frank, honest and thoughtful” response to the questions asked.

Co-host Peter Helliar said there could be an awkward conversation for Dreyfuss to have with his publicist, while Carrie Bickmore said it could have been down to miscommunication.

Did you watch the interview? What are your thoughts on this story?