Richard Wilkins celebrates 71st birthday in style with towering $150 chocolate cake adorned with strawberries
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Channel Nine star Richard Wilkins celebrated his 71st birthday on Thursday.
And his devoted colleagues at Today took to Instagram to share a touching tribute to the media veteran, who has been with a brekkie show for over three decades.
Today posted a photo of Richard in a smart black suit posing alongside a lavish cake topped with strawberries, which included a message in chocolate icing, ‘Happy Birthday Legend’.
The delicious looking dessert priced at $150 also included a decoration styled as an ’80s TV set complete with V-shaped antennae.
And inserted into the television ‘screen’ was a throwback image of Richard sporting his trademark ‘wave’ haircut.
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Channel Nine star Richard Wilkins celebrated his 71st birthday on Thursday. And his devoted colleagues at Today took to Instagram to share a touching tribute. (Pictured)
Richard has been with Today for over thirty years
The breakfast team from Nine also included a caption in the post, ‘Happy birthday to the heart and soul of TODAY entertainment, our beloved Dickie!
‘We hope your day is every bit as legendary as you are.’
It comes after the TV stalwart opened up earlier this year about his 38 years working in television.
And in a surprising twist the entertainment editor admitted he had a fair share of regrets.
The Nine star, who began working for the network in 1987, revealed in January he wishes he tried harder to become a pop star.
While he holds much pride in the TV work he has done over the years, the Weekend Today co-host told The Sunday Telegraph he regrets he stopped writing songs.
‘I don’t think I’d do too much differently, I was playing in bands and wanted to be an actor there for a while,’ he said, when asked what he would change about his career.
‘I wish I’d kept writing songs because I thought some of them were starting to get quite good and the comeback to that is, “Well it is never too late to stop.”‘
Richard abandoned a pop career in the ’80s to launch his TV career. (Pictured in 2005)
‘But I had an opportunity that came along when television was in a great growth spurt and music television, MTV, came along and it was just a perfect combination of everything that I had done.’
Richard went on to say his first gig on MTV when it launched on Nine in the late ’80s came at the ‘right time, right place’, and he would never take it back.
He said he ‘worked really hard’ and has ‘enjoyed the majority’ of his stint in television, even if it didn’t shoot him to rock star status as he hoped it would.
Despite being just a few years off his 40th anniversary with Nine, Richard doesn’t appear to be slowing down any time soon.
The TV presenter said he doesn’t know what he would do with himself if he wasn’t working.
Richard has worked in breakfast television for many years and also hosts weekend radio on Smooth FM.
On the side, the media personality is producing a movie and has plans to write a second book following his 2011 memoir Black Ties, Red Carpets, Green Rooms.
He was an aspiring pop singer when he first started working in the entertainment industry while still living in New Zealand where he was born.
But Richard said working for MTV was ‘a perfect combination of everything I have done’ previously in showbusiness.
It seems the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree as Richard’s son Christian Wilkins landed the role of red carpet host for the prestigious ARIA Awards last November.
