Sunrise star Natalie Barr reflects on losing TV role: ‘I was furious’

Sunrise star Natalie Barr reflects on her lowest career point in a candid new interview, revealing she “panicked” and called in lawyers.

Sunrise star Natalie Barr reflects on one of the most devastating blows of her TV career in a candid new interview with Stellar Magazine, out today.

It was 2001, and Barr was having a challenging year. Pregnant and suffering from terrible morning sickness, she had just come off live TV, where she had been reading the late news, to learn that her beloved dad had died of a heart attack aged just 61. Months later, and only having been back at work a few weeks, she was juggling her grief with a newborn who still wasn’t sleeping when she received more bad news: her prized newsreading role had been given to someone else, and she was going back into the pool of reporters.

RELATED: Natalie Barr’s big property payday

An early noughties Nat Barr.

She’s become one of morning TV’s most familiar faces. Supplied: Ch 7

“I was furious,” she recalls. “I told the news director if I was going to lose my job I’d have taken more maternity leave. I went home and cried, then I panicked, then I talked to my husband and then to a lawyer.” In the end, Barr chose to do something that changed the course of her life. “I decided not to pursue things with the lawyer. I walked back into Channel 7 and I sorted it out,” she says. “I told the news editor that going back on the road wouldn’t work for me and he came up with a role where I became a fill-in newsreader.”

Eight months later, Barr received a call from broadcasting wunderkind Adam Boland asking if she would be part of the new-look Sunrise as it took its Nine Network rival Today head-on. The rest is history – Barr has been a familiar face on Sunrise since 2003, proving immensely popular with viewers.

Nat joined Sunrise in 2003 – here she is that year with David Koch and then-co-host Mel Doyle.

“It was a sliding doors moment,” she tells Stellar with a smile. “It was a real lesson. I often think if I’d gone heavy and stomped out and consulted a lawyer, it wouldn’t have worked for me. Instead, 20 years later I’ve travelled the world and had the career of my dreams – because of that moment.”

Read the full interview with Natalie Barr in the current issue of Stellar, available in the Sunday Telegraph and Sunday Herald Sun, on sale Sunday, July 26.

Natalie Barr on the cover of Stellar.