Annette Sharp: Samantha Armytage signs off from Sunrise with sad bully beef

Columnist Annette Sharp says from her own bitter personal experience, outgoing Sunrise host Samantha Armytage uses the term “bully” carelessly, without consideration for the damage done when she marks someone this way.

“Bullies,” Samantha Armytage said, and my phone lit up like Cape Canaveral during a Falcon 9 test flight.

It’s a provocative word that has the potential to evoke a powerful emotional response from good honest folk who rightly abhor bullies.

It’s also a trigger word for a generation of legally-astute wannabe whistleblowers looking to engage and enrage sympathisers to a cause.

Or was, before some became increasingly casual with it.

Samantha Armytage farewells her Sunrise colleagues. Picture: Channel 7

In the hands of the outgoing Sunrise host, the word was once a high-impact bomb that when dropped strategically was a catalyst for maximum media headlines and public sympathy.

In dropping it as she clocked off from Channel 7 for the last time on Thursday, Armytage knew it had the potential to upset people, lots of them, both inside and outside of Seven.

“I do want to say that I never fully understood some of the scrutiny and the snarkiness and the bullying from some aspects of the media,” she said from the national broadcasting platform the Seven Network handed her eight years ago.

Armytage has been throwing the term “bully” around for years.

She’s used it on Sunrise.

She’s used it on her social media platforms.

She’s thrown it at me, she’s thrown it at my rivals, she’s thrown it at the media at large.

Tellingly she’s even thrown the term “bully” at fellow Seven Network talent, both past and present.

Armytage’s husband Richard Lavender joined her on her last day on set. Picture: Channel 7

In 2015 Woman’s Day magazine reported there were two network stars — “traitors” as the story labelled them — who were allegedly leaking against her.

“Sam knows the source of the leaks but what can she do when they are equally protected network personalities?” an unnamed source told the magazine.

“I was surprised by how many knives came out from people who maybe had had their day in the sun,” Armytage told News Corp that same year.

“It was pretty vicious … I think the people who want to compete with you and want to see you not do well will try and pick on anything they can, including leaking to newspapers, to bring you down.”

Believing Armytage, Seven, then under CEO Tim Worner, the boss who admired Armytage and promoted her, responded by launching a formal investigation into his star’s allegations against her TV colleagues.

If it unearthed anything other than resentment towards the star, we may never know.

Armytage and Lavender on their wedding day on News Year’s Eve.

Next came the latest shakedown of the hair, makeup and wardrobe departments.

No stone would go unturned as Seven searched for Sam’s “bullies” — all for nothing, we are told.

Not for a moment does this writer believe Armytage was “bullied” by her Seven colleagues.

I know from bitter personal experience Armytage uses the term “bully” carelessly, without consideration for the damage done when she marks someone this way.

Armytage labelled this columnist a bully in 2014, the year after she replaced Melissa Doyle at the helm of Sunrise.

I had written a story critiquing a new prime-time show Armytage was hosting called Bringing Sexy Back. I panned the show and Seven pulled it from air soon after due to poor ratings.

My story ran with a set of candid paparazzi shots of the star running errands. In one shot, Armytage was wearing a woolly jumper.

I described her in the accompanying article as looking “comfy womfy” — a term of affection in my house where it has been used to describe my children when they’re rugged up. It means “comfortable” — cute is also implied. I assumed it was self evident.

The next day Seven gave Armytage the green light to go on the offensive concerning my piece. Her co-panellists joined in.

Armytage signed off by mentioning the ‘bullies’ she has repeatedly referred to over the years. Picture: Hanna Lassen/Getty

Branded a “fat shamer” on national television for writing a piece that had fat shamed no one and made absolutely no reference to Armytage’s size or stature, I was soon at the centre of commentary and accusations without foundation, not that Seven cared.

This was my comeuppance for me being critical a year earlier at the way Armytage’s predecessor Melissa Doyle had been replaced.

“I don’t understand this shaming …” Armytage said on air, accusing this writer of trying to “bully me into an eating disorder”.

Eating disorder. Another trigger term for nervous mothers and fathers and young feminists suffering low self-esteem. The feeding frenzy continued.

Claiming to be the bullied victim, Armytage then encouraged her followers to attack me on social media, telling her legion of Twitter followers to pile on: “Let her know your thoughts,” she urged.

They did. Viciously. They were still piling on last year as the star urged them afresh with new attacks on me that were not founded in truth.

For this reason I won’t name the TV talent Armytage has branded bullies during the past year. Those allegations will be as baseless as her accusations against me were.

If Armytage thinks she’s somehow progressed the feminist cause with her name-calling, she is mistaken.

In a world in which provocative insults from furious feminists have become commonplace, such as the term “racist” being fired at the British Royal Family from America, Armytage’s revived bullying barb should be seen for what it truly is: a last gasp for attention.