As Karl Stefanovic turned away from the camera and ran off into the park behind him, he jumped up and kicked his heels together.

A moment of glee as he “freed” himself from the shackles of the mainstream media job that has enriched him and made him famous for two decades.

It’s a gesture that could be interpreted in myriad ways in the same way that Stefanovic could be interpreted in myriad ways.

Was that little kick a playful reminder of his “larrikin” reputation or a defiant, massive f... you to his now former bosses at Nine, who turfed him after he platformed and literally embraced a thrice-convicted far-right racist agitator on his podcast, going so far as to say to the man too extreme for even Nigel Farage, “God, I love ya”.

Stefanovic has not traditionally been cast as a divisive figure. For most of his career, he was largely seen as a cheeky but harmless presence on breakfast TV. He spoke plainly and joked around, but relied on his background as a news reporter to appear serious when the moment called for it.

When he showed up drunk on national TV the morning after one Logies ceremony, for a lot of people, that was a plus, not a minus.

Good old Karl! What a larrikin! So relatable!

Leaving aside the fact the “larrikin” label has been used to excuse a lot of poor, punch-down behaviour over the years, and wielded as a shield against so-called humourless wowsers, Stefanovic has benefited immensely from the myth that he was just “one of the blokes”.

OK, the kind of regular guy who cruises around on his billionaire mate’s superyacht, but yeah, he’s so fun-loving and relatable, right? Don’t worry about him using a slur against the trans community on air or cracking racist “jokes” against the Indian diaspora at breakfast time.

His ousting from Nine this week has been framed as a fall from grace, because Stefanovic has been pedestalled as one of Australia’s most beloved media personalities.

Except — he wasn’t.

Most definitely not to all. Perhaps Stefanovic as a divisive figure isn’t such a recent phenomenon as he increasingly, steadfastly ran rightwards towards the manosphere.

It’s always a better story when the downfall is from atmospheric heights, everyone loves a contrast, but there has always been a not insignificant segment of Australians who have never warmed to Stefanovic.

And we’re not just talking about the Sunrise (which shares a parent company with The Nightly) or ABC News Breakfast viewers who would never consider the switch to Today.

We’re talking about the reams of Australians who always saw something off about Stefanovic, who found his persona cringe, disingenuous, self-serving and, above all, smug.

Oh yes, smug is the word.

Smug is what sprayed off him when in 2014 he revealed he had secretly worn the same blue suit for 12 months and nobody had noticed. He said he wanted to make a point about how his female colleagues are judged harshly for their sartorial choices on air.

Thanks, Karl! Thanks for noticing that women face double standards. What a revelation.

He was hailed as some kind of feminist hero, and news of his audacity and bravery spread far and wide as he spoke on behalf of the women of Australia. What an ally.

If there was a double standard, it was that Stefanovic had done the absolute bare minimum and lionised as if he single-handedly secured women the vote — or, ahem, equal pay — and he basked in it. He traded off it.

He didn’t use the opportunity to hand the mic over to women either on the show or elsewhere to have an actual conversation about the many ways gender inequality is manifested in Australia.

Smug. Superior.

Meanwhile, some behind the scenes were fuming — he does not enjoy the most stellar reputation among many former colleagues.

When his marriage to first wife Cassandra Thorburn broke down, and he stepped out with the younger Jasmine Yarbrough mere months later, the optics were bad.

Marriage separations are complex and no one says you can’t ever re-partner again, but for someone who had worked in the media for more than two decades at that point, Stefanovic knew how it would look.

If your primary breakfast TV audience is mums getting their kids ready for school in the mornings, what you don’t want to project is the perception you might be a love rat who traded in your long-devoted wife and mother of your three children for a younger model, literally.

“The children still have a father but I don’t have a husband. He really is dead to me, and no, we won’t ever be friends again,” Thorburn later told Woman’s Day in 2017.

Then came that 2018 incident in which an Uber driver recounted Stefanovic’s 45-minute phone call to his brother Peter Stefanovic and sister-in-law and co-star Sylvia Jefferies, in which the presenter bad-mouthed his colleagues, without stopping to think that maybe it wasn’t a good idea in front of a stranger.

Between that, the continued media circus around his personal life, challenged ratings, and a re-litigation of his many on-air mishaps, he eventually stepped down from Today.

The replacement line-up didn’t quite work, but the mistake Nine made was hiring him back in 2020. His return seemingly gave Stefanovic the impression he was untouchable. He had been cast out and welcome back as the prodigal son.

With that act, the Nine executives at the time may as well have told him, you’re irreplaceable, because we tried.

They didn’t try hard enough, although it was well-known at the time that then Nine boss Mike Sneesby was close to Stefanovic, and if you’ve ever observed the two interacting, it was obvious from their body language that they were thick as thieves.

Bringing Stefanovic back in 2020 didn’t close the ratings gap to its main rival, and given that it was the first Covid year when all traditional media platforms saw a bump, and the addition of the well-regarded Ally Langdon, it would be hard to credit Stefanovic with stemming the losses.

If Nine had let him go after that 2018 exit and let Stefanovic languish in the wilderness of the formerly relevant, we could’ve all avoided this embarrassing debacle today where it was untenable for him to continue as a face of a major TV network but cutting him loose made him a cause celebre for the fringe.

Perhaps he cynically assessed the wind and saw a commercial opportunity in being a mouthpiece for populist and nativist politics, or maybe he has genuinely become radicalised to the point of apologising for listening to scientists and encouraging vaccine take-up during a global pandemic, but for the Stefanovic sceptics, this recent turn is a relief.

It crystallised what many thought all along, that this dude was — and always has been — a bad egg. And now most people knew it, and are finally facing up to this salient fact: Australia doesn’t need Karl Stefanovic.

His all-but-endorsement of Pauline Hanson, who thinks the Australian “monoculture” should be centred on Paul Hogan and Norman Gunston because in her optimal world, time would’ve stopped in 1986, platforming Holly Valance and other extremists without challenging them like the journalist he purported to be, it was finally too much.

This is not a free speech issue, as he and his supporters have claimed. Stefanovic is free to continue to not interrogate or ethically engage with far-right extremists pushing racist, transphobic or conspiratorial views on his podcast and enjoy those sponsorships from peptide peddlers.

This was a commercial decision by Nine that Stefanovic was more risk than reward, and maybe even a recognition that discourse in Australia may have coarsened and become more divided, but there are still consensus standards.

Putting your arm around Islamophobic criminals who incite race riots and telling them he admired them for their “tenacity” is not breakfast TV. It’s not even lovable larrikin.

But at least he is, for now and hopefully forever, gone from the legitimisation he’s enjoyed from being one of the highest paid personalities on a free-to-air TV network. Good luck to him vying for the same money as Kyle Sandilands in this small podcast market.

To repeat Thorburn’s words, “We won’t ever be friends again”.