Greg Hywood, a successful media magnate, lauded his wife’s “beautifully written” tell-all book in which she extensively details all of his extramarital encounters.
Hywood, who oversaw Fairfax from 2010 to 2018 when Nine acquired it, and his journalist wife Kate Legge had been apart since the night of their 30th wedding anniversary.
In her forthcoming book, Infidelity and Other Affairs, Legge discusses Hywood’s several extramarital relationships during the course of their marriage. The book’s publication date is February 28.
Hywood, who is now the head of Free TV, is said to have reviewed a draft of the book and even offered a title.
He told The Australian that Kate’s book “should stand alone as her view on the people, events, and vagaries of life that have moulded her” and that he had helped her through every step of the writing process.
In the book, Legge, a novelist and senior writer for the Weekend Australian Magazine, expresses her sorrow about her husband’s affair.
She investigates if there is a link between other relatives who have also cheated on their partners.
The first time Legge learned of her husband’s adultery, she said in the book, was when he chose to confess in their garage when they were standing next to their trash cans.
“My career has been committed to the story of people’s lives—the good, the terrible, and the ugly—as a writer, editor, and media executive. About Legge’s memoir, Hywood observed, “I could scarcely protest solely because for a change I was the topic.
Others in our family have shown open support for Kate’s work in a similar manner. The end result is a wonderfully written novel with plenty of empathy.
Legge chose to stick with Hywood when he originally admitted to having an affair since their oldest son was completing his HSC.
Legge noticed emails from a lady she didn’t know as well as emails from the woman’s name when she got onto the computer years later.
I lost my mind. She claimed in a story for the Sydney Morning Herald that she repeatedly hit herself in the face with her fists.
I had “punished” myself for being deaf, stupid, and blind.
Legge and Hywood have been apart for a while, but they refuse to “bother” seeking a divorce, according to them.
Despite all we’ve gone through—or maybe precisely because of everything we’ve survived—my spouse and I remain close, she added.
The ABC commentator Annabel Crabb, who gave the book great acclaim, said it was “that riveting I toppled into a trashcan while reading it.”
Hywood, 68, started his journalism career in 1976 as a cadet in the Melbourne office of the Australian Financial Review. He eventually became the paper’s editor.
Before leaving the firm for seven years, he was made publisher and editor-in-chief of The Sydney Morning Herald, Sun Herald, and The Age.
Although Brian McCarthy abruptly left Fairfax in December of that year, Hywood returned in 2010, was named interim CEO, and was officially confirmed in the role in March 2011.
Once Fairfax was acquired by Nine Entertainment in 2018, he left the company and was appointed head of Free TV, the organization that previously governed the Federation of Australian Commercial Television Stations.
Legge, who is two years younger than Hywood, has written two books: The Marriage Club and The Unexpected Components of Love, both of which were longlisted for the Miles Franklin Prize.
The 28th of February will see the release of Kate Legge’s book Infidelity and Other Affairs by Thames & Hudson.
»Kate Legge’s memoir about her cheating Fairfax husband earned Greg Hywood’s praise«