Peter Overton reveals he was offered Today show role host alongside wife Jessica Rowe

Peter Overton has revealed he was offered Karl Stefanovic’s job as Today co-host alongside wife Jessica Rowe. 

The veteran Channel Nine newsreader dropped the bombshell on Rowe’s Big Talk Show podcast on Wednesday.  

‘I remember them (Channel Nine executives) saying, “Oh, maybe you and Jessica could host the show together?” Overton said, as his wife gasped at the memory.

Overton continued, ‘I said, “You’re kidding me? You’re going to ruin two careers, ruin a marriage and ruin a program in one hit? No thank you.”

Karl Stefanovic was Rowe’s co-host at the time, suggesting that Overton would potentially have taken over his role.

Overton also recalled his fury at learning that Rowe had subsequently been fired from the morning show.  

Family: Overton and his wife, former Studio 10 presenter Jessica Rowe are pictured her with their daughters Allegra, 14, and Giselle, 12 

‘I was ready to quit Channel Nine because I was so upset at the way you were treated,’ Overton recalled, before adding that his wife of 18 years talked him out of the stance. 

‘You said to me, “We’ve got a mortgage to pay buster, don’t make a stupid decision”.’ 

Rowe added that she’d advised her husband: ‘We can’t implode two of our careers at the same time. It would be a disaster.’  

Overton and Rowe recently celebrated their 18th wedding anniversary. 

The couple share two daughters, Allegra 14, and Giselle, 12, and first met when Jess was doing work experience at Channel Nine when she was 19.

Love story: Overton and Rowe recently celebrated their 18th wedding anniversary

‘As we were talking I was thinking, “Why can’t I meet a nice man like this? Why am I not attracting really good, decent people like this beautiful man?”‘ she told Mamamia in May 2018.

‘It was a lovely night, you know. We were just chatting, and off I went and off he went.’

Jessica said she was later lamenting about her single status to her friend and colleague at the time, rugby league reporter Tony Peters.

She mentioned that she thought Peter seemed ‘really nice’, and Tony revealed that he knew him and offered to give him a call on her behalf.

Peter eventually agreed to take Jessica out, but only if she called him, which led to them having a ‘lovely night’.

‘I thought, “Damn it. I will ring.” Because I’d asked blokes out before – sometimes you have to. So I rang Petey and, I’ll never forget, he said to me, “I like your