Em Rusciano's 2Day FM radio feud turns toxic

A FORMER 2Day FM staffer has revealed what it’s like to work with embattled radio host Em Rusciano.

The outspoken radio host raised eyebrows on Friday when she blasted the Sydney media as a “bunch of c***s” and predicted she was “hurtling towards some sort of implosion in the next six months” in a expletive-laden podcast with comedian Wil Anderson.

Now, a former staffer who worked closely with Rusciano on her Sydney breakfast show said “there aren’t many people at the station who like her”.

“She makes it a toxic work environment,” the staffer told news.com.au, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

“In all honesty, I actually feel really sad for her.

“She seems really insecure. She portrays this really confident, ‘I think I’m the greatest!’ image but I think it stems from a really deep-seeded insecurity, which is really sad.

“She just doesn’t know how to interact with people. She won’t compromise with anybody. She’s always has to be right.”

The ex-staffer spoke to news.com.au after another 2Day FM source told The Daily Telegraph that staff at the radio station were refusing to work with Rusciano.

“Things are at breaking point, people just cannot work with her energy,” the source told the publication.

“There have been ... casualties at the hands of Em Rusciano.”

Rusciano hosts the 2Day FM breakfast show with Grant Denyer and Ed Kavalee, who joined the show at the start of this year after Harley Breen quit at the end of 2017.

Rusciano sent shockwaves through the radio industry last week when she made startling comments on Wil Anderson’s Wilosophy podcast.

In her interview with the comedian and Triple M host, Rusciano admitted she is “not a team player”, isn’t suited to breakfast radio and predicted she’s “probably hurtling towards some sort of implosion in the next six months”.

Describing herself to Anderson, Rusciano said: “I will go into a situation initially just kind, just listening to everyone. But then, I’m pretty impatient and I’m a perfectionist and I’m a little bit nutty and then when someone I feel is getting in my way or is slowing me down or isn’t listening I just f**king turn and I’m impatient and I’m mean and I’m a bitch and I’m not a team player.

“I’m just not a team player. I’m s**t in a team. I think I’m a good leader, but I’m not very good at listening to other peoples opinions if they’re different to mine.”

Rusciano, who is also a talented singer and comedian, told Anderson that she wasn’t a “s**t person” and was “anxiety ridden”.

“I lay awake at night going through the day of all the times I was horrible and feel awful and either send a late night guilt text or an email the next day saying I’m so sorry,” she said.

The entertainer confessed to Anderson that she didn’t think she was well suited to breakfast radio and that it “brings out the worst aspects of my personality, hence the rumours that go around about me within the industry, and I’m hyper aware of that”.

“I struggle so much with it,” she said about the job. “Containing myself to not get too passionate or fired up about something, not swear, not roll my eyes at every single f**king thing that gets said.

“I don’t want to be part of the numbing and dumbing of society. I think that’s going on enough. And sometimes I struggle with the idea of some of the things we do — it’s so frivolous and unnecessary and flippant.”

Rusciano went on to say that she was hit really hard when Breen decided to walk away from the breakfast show at the end of 2017 after just one year on air with her. And she made it clear she didn’t get to hand-pick Breen’s replacements.

“Then, like Ed [Kavalee] and Grant [Denyer] were, like, they were put in the show,” she said.

“And I, all of a sudden, got two co-hosts that I’d never really met or spoken to, and then I’m expected to have this instant chemistry with. And it was just hectic. And it was The Em Rusciano Radio Show. It was my show, and all of a sudden Ed’s anchoring, the show’s called The 2Day FM Breakfast Show, like I took all these big ego hits.”

Rusciano told Anderson she struggled in a team environment and would have preferred to have been able to choose her team members, including producers, herself.

“I often get put together with people I would never pick to work with, just because of my personality type,” she said on Wilosophy.

“I think radio would be a different ball game for me if I could just sell the show. So I pay all the staff. And I tried to fight them [2Day FM] on this when they signed me. I’m like, ‘please let me produce the show and give me this much money and I’ll give you a finished product every day’. But they wouldn’t do it because they want some control in the show.”

News.com.au understands that Rusciano’s comments on the podcast offended some of her existing team members, although Anderson defended the radio host on Twitter today.

“Em was actually nothing but complimentary about the people she works with, and off air even more so,” he tweeted today.

News.com.au reached out to 2Day FM to see if the station, or Rusciano, would like to comment, but they declined.

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