Brittany Higgins’ angry letter to Lisa Wilkinson

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

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

Ms Higgins sent a letter to Wilkinson five days later, calling out the TV host for using footage that wasn’t used in the first program, to make another.

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

But her tone quickly changed when she started addressing the follow-up program.

‘As I discussed earlier in the week with your producer Angus [Llewellyn] when I declined his approach for a second interview, I do not want to participate in any further media interviews at this stage,’ she wrote.

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

‘While I understand that you do have the contractual rights to my original interview, I was never told at that time that you would air more than one programme detailing my assault,’ she said. 

‘I am therefore really disturbed and disappointed that when I told Angus I did not want another interview on this matter, you would have gone ahead and put one together anyway based on footage you filmed for the initial interview but did not use.’

Brittany Higgins is pictured in an interview with Lisa Wilkinson on The Project in 2021

She told the TV host that she had ‘been very good to deal with to date’ but stressed that she didn’t want to appear in further media interviews. 

Ms Higgins told Wilkinson that if the follow-up episode ‘goes ahead and still airs this material knowing how strongly I am opposed to it, then I will be forced to issue my own media statement (and this email) making clear that I wrote to you and asked you not to do it due to my fragile mental health, but you did it anyway’. 

A second program was not aired. 

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 in the second program ‘that may be of merit’.

Ms Higgins then asked Wilkinson to include details about why she came forward with her allegations.