Cass Thorburn’s tense response to Karl Stefanovic question amid ‘awkward’ interview
She says he's in her "rearview mirror".
Karl Stefanovic‘s ex-wife Cass Thorburn had a blunt response when she was asked about the former Today Show star in a new interview, which listeners have admitted they found “hard to listen to”.
During an appearance on Mamamia’s No Filter podcast this week, the 55-year-old said Karl – the man she was married to for two decades – was “so far in my rear-view mirror”.
Karl and Cass welcomed three children during their time together, Jackson, Willow (known as Ava), and River. The pair divorced in 2017.
“Like I can’t tell you,” Cass continued. “I really don’t have anything to say about someone that I knew 10 years ago. Like, it’s a decade.”
When host Kate Langbroek asked her whether she still considers Karl part of her story, she replied: “Yeah, no. He’s my children’s father. I don’t really consider it any more than that… I haven’t had anything to do with him in 10 years. I don’t really think about him.”
In the interview, Cass went on to say that since the divorce she’s concentrated on getting to know herself.
“When you’re a couple, you’re one half of a union, that’s what you agree to when you marry,” she explained.
“You agree to be partners with them,” she continued. “It’s what we are supposed to do in a marriage, I guess, is form a partnership and honour that partnership and be part of it.
“And I think afterward you want to get to know who you are again… and not just because of the marriage, you’re a parent, you’re part of a family of five and then all of a sudden you’re a single mum and you’re not part of a couple.”
The mum-of-four went on to explain that she felt like the sole parent after the divorce.
“I called it parallel parenting because we didn’t co-parent,” she explained. “We parallel parented and I was quite happy in my parallel parenting.”
The former Dancing with the Stars contestant said there were some benefits to her parenting situation with Karl.
“It’s not always easy but it’s not always hard either,” she explained. “To be the sole parent is in some respects quite lovely sometimes.
Cass’ chat with Kate also covered the topic of her aggressive breast cancer diagnosis. But having listened to the episode, listeners expressed discomfort.
“I felt for Kate. Cass came across as almost defensive, and quite guarded in this interview,” one listener shared on Instagram.
“Agree this interview was hard to listen to,” another added. “Kate was asking her to be relatable to other women and I think she was struggling with this. Made me feel for Kate. Sympathize with her diagnosis.”
“Well done Kate on managing the awkward moments around questions that instantly struck a nerve ..a great job,” another added.
Earlier this year, in an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, Cass admitted she was sick of being labelled as the “bitter ex-wife”.
“The media wanted me to be a bitter ex-wife because there’s a name for it, because that’s what they call every ex-wife,” she told the publication. “What’s the term for the man? They never use one.
“I have an inherent distrust of the media because they decided who they wanted me to be, not who I am.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Cass revealed that she hasn’t heard from Karl since sharing her breast cancer diagnosis publicly earlier this year.
“No, I know who he is. It’s others that don’t,” she told the publication.
