Julia Gillard says she regrets giving Kevin Rudd "hope" that he had more time in the top job on the night that she deposed him as prime minister.
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In an interview to promote her upcoming memoirs, the former prime minister tells Channel Nine that the time she replaced Mr Rudd as prime minister on June 23, 2010, was "very emotional".
"If anything, the reputation I have from that night is one of political brutality," she says. "Actually, in the moment I was hesitant, a conversation went too long, I certainly fed [Mr Rudd] hope. I shouldn't have done that."
Mr Rudd has said that when Ms Gillard went to his office on the fateful night in 2010 to talk to him about his position as prime minister, she first agreed he could have more time to improve the government's standing in the polls – but then later returned to say that she was challenging him for the leadership.
In the interview with Ray Martin on Tuesday evening, Ms Gillard also says that she expected Mr Rudd to be acutely hurt and distressed after she deposed him.
"I know a lot now about what it feels like to lose the prime ministership, so I expected him to feel very, very battered and bruised," she says. "Obviously I was wrong about that."
The former prime minister, whose memoirs are due to be launched this week, also laments her infamous comment during the 2010 election campaign that it was "time for me to make sure that the real Julia is well and truly on display".
The remark opened Ms Gillard up to ridicule from the Coalition and raised questions about her political strategy.
"I put my hand up for that 100 per cent," she says. "That's my fault, you know, sort of dumb, dumb error, rookie error maybe. I mean, I wasn't a rookie in politics, I was a rookie at being prime minister."
In the interview, Ms Gillard also talks about her relationship with Tim Mathieson, the hairdresser who was Australia first "first bloke". She dismisses descriptions of the two as an "odd couple".
"You look at all of that and you say 'how much of that is gender working?' because would we think it was quite so odd if a male prime minister or a male chief executive officer of a big bank or whatever had a wife who worked as a hairdresser?" she says.
Ms Gillard's memoirs, My Story, are due to be launched by former governor-general Quentin Bryce on September 26. The book details the three years and three days of Ms Gillard's prime ministership.
Nine News special: Julia Gillard - The Whole Truth, 6.50pm Tuesday, September 23 on Nine.
