Kate Legge’s memoir praised by Greg Hywood after she wrote about Fairfax husband’s affairs

Media mogul Greg Hywood has praised his wife’s ‘beautifully written’ tell-all memoir where she divulges in great detail all of his extra-martial affairs.

Hywood, who ran Fairfax from 2010 to 2018 before it was bought by Nine, has been separated from his journalist wife Kate Legge since the eve of their 30th wedding anniversary. 

Legge has opened up about Hywood’s string of affairs throughout their marriage in her book Infidelity and Other Affairs, which will be released on February 28.

It was earlier revealed Hywood, who is now the chairman of Free TV, read a draft of the memoir and even suggested a title.

‘Kate’s book should stand alone as her perspective of the people and events and vagaries of life that have shaped her,’ he told The Australian, adding he had supported her at every stage of writing the book. 

Legge, a novelist and senior writer for the Weekend Australian Magazine, shares her heartache over her husband’s infidelity in the novel.

She analyses whether there’s a connection between other members of her family who have also been unfaithful in their relationships.

Legge also revealed in the book she first found out about her husband’s infidelity when he decided to confess in their garage as the couple stood next to their rubbish bins. 

‘As a journalist, editor and media executive my career has been devoted to the stories of people’s lives; the good, the bad, the ugly. I could hardly object merely because for a change I was the subject,’ Hywood said about Legge’s memoir.

Hywood, who ran the company now known as Nine Publishing from 2010 to 2018, has been separated from his journalist wife Kate Legge since the eve of their 30th wedding anniversary

‘Others in our family have similarly been open in their support of Kate’s work. The outcome is a beautifully written book of great insight and empathy.’

After Hywood initially disclosed his affair, Legge decided to stay by him, given their eldest son was finishing his HSC.

But years later, as she logged onto the computer, Legge saw emails under the woman’s name and emails from another woman she didn’t know.

‘I went bonkers. I punched myself again and again with my fists,’ she wrote in a piece for the Sydney Morning Herald.

‘I’d punished myself for being blind and dumb and deaf.’

Legge and Hywood have been separated for several years but say they are yet to ‘bother’ getting a divorce.

Legge divulges details of her husband’s extra martial affairs in her new tell-all memoir Infidelity and Other Affairs, released on February 28

‘My husband and I remain close despite everything we’ve been through, perhaps because of all we’ve survived,’ she said.

The memoir has already received high praise from ABC commentator Annabel Crabb, who described it as ‘so gripping I crashed into a bin while reading it’. 

Hywood, 68, began his journalistic career as a cadet in the Australian Financial Review’s Melbourne bureau in 1976 and later edited the paper.

He was promoted to publisher and editor-in-chief of The Sydney Morning Herald, Sun Herald and The Age before leaving the company for seven years.

Hywood returned to Fairfax in 2010, was appointed interim CEO after the sudden departure of Brian McCarthy in December that year and was confirmed in the position in March 2011.

He quit Fairfax after it was taken over by Nine Entertainment in 2018 and became chair of Free TV, the industry body formerly known as the Federation of Australian Commercial Television Stations.

Legge, who is two years younger than Hywood, has published two novels: The Unexpected Elements of Love, which was long-listed for the Miles Franklin Award, and The Marriage Club.

Infidelity and Other Affairs by Kate Legge will be published by Thames & Hudson on February 28.