Liz Hayes has been stalked by the same man for decades.

Liz Hayes says she is still stalked by a man who first began contacting her while she was a host on Today from 1986 to 1996.

Hayes, during a 60 Minutes interview with her colleague Tara Brown about her almost 5-year career, said that she left that high-profile morning TV role for a reporter job on 60 Minutes to "stop being so visible".

"This will sound wrong, but I did decide that it was time for me to stop being on television every day," she said.

"How long did he stalk you for?" Brown asked.

"Still," Hayes replied.

"A stalker, what they do is rob you of your sense of safety. That's how it is, and that robs me of life that I hate having taken," she added.

When Liz Hayes was at the Today Show. Image: Instagram/@lizhayesofficial

Hayes also writes about the experience in her upcoming memoir, I'm Liz Hayes.

She said it began when the phone in her Today dressing room rang and a man whose voice she did not recognise queried her about why she did not use the pen he sent her unsolicited.

"Some months later I was being stalked," she wrote, as per an extract published by the Daily Telegraph.

"I began to feel paranoid and overly alert. At home, I was constantly checking that doors and windows were locked and I didn't like being alone.

"Sometimes I would ring friends at night simply to try and talk myself to sleep.

"There were times when security guards came to outside broadcasts and even my residence."

The stalker once visited her parents, and she said a private detective even called her to say the person had hired him to find her.

"The joy drained from my life and it would take years before I regained the confidence to move about safely. I try not to think about it anymore so I can get on with my life, but in truth, it's still not the same," she wrote.

Hayes joined 60 Minutes as a correspondent in 1996 and remains in the role today. In 2021, she marked 40 years with the Nine Network.

Feature image: Nine.