The comedian, author and radio host said she crawled under a table at her Hit Network radio job and cried on Friday when the article appeared on News.com.au and The Daily Telegraph websites.

The former Australian Idol contestant said she had been on the brink of burnout for a few months, but the headline, about her appearance on Channel Seven's The Big Music Quiz, had "triggered a tidal wave of past hurt" and proved to be a tipping point for her, leaving her devastated.

"When I read the headline: 'Em Rusciano is a nightmare to work with' it felt visceral. I was instantly taken back to a place where I was 25, in a meeting with my boss and being told that I was impossible to work with and made everyone around me unhappy," Rusciano, 37, wrote on her own website, in a post outlining her reasons for quitting her weekly column.

"Why am I super touchy over this? I've spent my whole career being called difficult. Look there's no denying that in the past I was, however I was also young, scared and clueless. I think I've managed to turn that around with maturity, hindsight and a shit load of therapy.

"Yes: I'm a person who needs to ask questions, who has a strong sense of self and I'm someone who refuses to take shit. If I were a man I'd be called assertive, alas I'm not."

In the News Corp Australia article, The Big Music Quiz host Darren McMullen had apparently laughed as he described Rusciano as a "nightmare".

"She just went on the most bizarre tangents and we were like, 'Em, it's a family show, this is never going to make it to air!'," McMullen reportedly said.

"It was hilarious, everyone was in stitches in the studio, but the show we did with her was probably the longest show we did, it was getting up over the three-hour mark."

But the headline stirred a strong response from Rusciano after what she said had been a tough few months. On the same day the article was published, she had also forgotten to pack her daughter's school lunch and had received a phone call from the school, triggering feelings of guilt.

"I've been teetering on the brink of burnout for a few months now," she wrote on her website on Monday.

"I've been fighting it off with wine, anxiety and denial however the energy deficit I was in grew too large, and my edges became too frayed, to hold together."

Rusciano also wrote on Facebook on the night the article appeared that she was "hanging on by my fingernails".

"I'm OK. Just a little broken, I'll mend. I always do. This is not an attention seeking quest this is me telling you I'm a bit shit at the moment, that I'm a human person like you," she wrote.

Rusciano said she had decided to stop writing her News Corp Australia column and instead would focus on writing for her own website.