‘She wanted my life from the get-go’: Natalie Joyce unloads on Vikki Campion and Barnaby Joyce in Women’s Weekly interview

Natalie Joyce says her husband’s mistress wanted her life from the moment she went to work for the then deputy PM.

Natalie Joyce says Vikki Campion wanted her life as soon as she began working with the then deputy PM. Picture: The Australian's Women's Weekly/Channel 7

Natalie Joyce says her husband’s mistress “wanted my life from the get-go” that she went to work for the then deputy prime minister and put a “wrecking ball” through their lives.

Her hurt and anger with 32-year-old Vikki Campion, now the mother of a baby boy with Barnaby Joyce, is laid bare in a searing interview with The Australian Women’s Weekly published in full today.

Vikki Campion and Barnaby Joyce during their interview on Channel 7’s Sunday Night program. Picture: Channel 7

Describing the moment when she confronted the young woman in March 2017, after Mr Joyce had stopped coming home, she said: “I was very measured and made sure I didn’t raise my voice. She and Barney were smoking outside.

“He bolted when he saw me. I turned to her and said, ‘My husband is out of bounds, off-limits, he’s a married man with four children,’ and then I called her a home-wrecking wh***. It was not one of my finer moments but, looking back, I’m proud I stood up to her.”

Mrs Joyce, 48, said she cottoned on to the “worst kept secret” in Canberra that her husband was having an affair with his then media adviser after seeing them together at a Christmas party in 2016, about seven months after Ms Campion had joined the deputy PM’s office. “I was probably the last silly mug to know,” she said.

In late September 2017, after she had given him back her wedding ring, she said Mr Joyce begged her for another chance. “He said, ‘Nat, give me a week. I thought I had this sorted. I love you — you know that — I just f***** up’. Now a week later I got the news: Vikki was pregnant.

“My world came crashing down,” Mrs Joyce continued. “I chose not to tell our girls — Caroline was doing her HSC, Odette was in year nine at boarding school, Bridgette was in third year commerce and international relations and Jules was in first year criminology. They didn’t need to know until I had time to work out when and how to tell them.”

At an emotional meeting at the family home in Tamworth, NSW, Mrs Joyce said she had asked her husband to return. When he said he couldn’t, that he had “to be there for his son”, Mrs Joyce said she went “wild”. “I said, ‘What about our daughters?’ He always wanted a boy and, while the girls really are the epicentre of his universe, we had no chance: she was giving him a son.”

Compounding her distress, the couple called the baby Sebastian, the name that had always been top of her list with Mr Joyce for a son. “It felt like another malicious taunt in a very long line of appalling behaviour,” Mrs Joyce said.

Their daughters, aged 15-21, had not yet met their new brother but the decision was up to them, and she would support the girls whatever they chose to do. She wanted them to have a “loving relationship” with their father, and the door would be open if he needed the family. “Despite everything, we’re here,” Mrs Joyce said.

But she was “very clear that woman will never be in our lives,” she said, referring to Ms Campion.

Explaining why she had broken her silence with the Weekly — which insisted the interview was unpaid — in contrast to the $150,000 reportedly outlaid by the Seven Network to sit down with Mr Joyce and Ms Campion, Mrs Joyce said she wanted the girls to know their mother had stood up to defend their “fine name”.

Barnaby Joyce's eldest daughter, Bridgette Joyce. Picture: Facebook

“I am normally a very private person but knew I had to find my voice,” she said. “They thought I would lie down, but this time, I couldn’t. Before the critics label me the scorned ex-wife or a pathetic victim or imply that this is some sort of revenge attack — and before any ridiculous suggestion of ours being a loveless marriage — I want to say, for the record, that nothing could be more wrong.

“I’m doing this so the girls will feel empowered and know their mum stood up and defended our fine name. I want to give them plenty of reasons to feel proud of at least one of their parents … I can put on my ‘big girl pants’ and wear the constant king hits, but it’s not fair that our four daughters suffer at the hands of their father’s betrayal. Our girls are the real victims here.”