Richard Wilkins (TV presenter)

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Richard Wilkins (born 1954 in New Zealand) is a prominent Australian television personality on the Nine Network. He officially became an Australian on Australia Day 2006. Richard has five children; one daughter, Estelle, with his on again off again partner, Collette Dinnigan. His other four children - Adam 32, Rebecca, 23, Nicholas 20, and Christian 10 all of which have different mothers.

[edit] Career

Wilkins was a pop-star during the 1970s and 1980s in New Zealand. His stage name at this time was Richard Wilde and his backing band was known as Wilde & Reckless. He left the music stage to work behind the scenes as Promotions and Marketing Manager for Sydney radio stations 2-DayFM and 2UW, and then he moved to television at Nine. Wilkins currently has a career in Australian television which in the past has seen him host a game show called Keynotes in 1992. Keynotes was a summertime replacement for Australian Sale of the Century. Around the same period, he was a reporter on the now-defunct Australian version of Entertainment Tonight.

In the year 2000 Richard Wilkins was fooled by an April Fools' Day prank, run on youth radio station Triple j, that led him to announce on national television that Sydney had lost the right to host the 2000 Olympic Games. The prank was set up by Adam Spencer, joint host of the Triple j breakfast show at the time, and included a staged announcement from then premier of New South Wales, Bob Carr, that seemed to confirm the news that the Olympics were being taken away from Sydney. At the end of the breakfast show Adam Spencer, a.k.a. RADM, apologised to people who may have been fooled by the prank but made a point of exempting Dick Wilkins from the apology.

Most recently he is seen on the Today Show as a field reporter and is the summertime replacement for Karl Stefanovic as co-host with Leila McKinnon. He also presents the Logie Awards Preshow, Reports from the New Years Eve fireworks in Sydney and reports at international award shows like the Golden Globe Awards.