This was published 1 year ago
Natalie Barr: ‘If you can’t cope with scrutiny, then you shouldn’t be on TV’
Since the departure of David Koch from Sunrise, Natalie Barr has become breakfast TV’s longest-reigning star. A thick skin and a ‘no-fuss’ attitude may have something to do with it.
By Lorna Gray
Eight Australian prime ministers, four US presidents and countless breakfast TV hosts have come and gone while Natalie Barr, 55, has remained a steadfast member of Channel Seven’s Sunrise. Now in her 20th year, Barr recently experienced the show’s biggest shake-up yet as she farewelled long-time host and friend David Koch. The pair were in tears as Kochie said his emotional goodbyes on Sunrise last month.
After 21 years, his departure certainly felt like the end of an era, but Barr has been a permanent fixture of the show for almost the same length of time. In fact, her tenure is now set to become the longest of any Australian brekky TV star, notwithstanding her overall Channel Seven career, which amounts to an impressive 28 years. After spending her first 18 years at Sunrise as newsreader, Barr took over hosting duties from Samantha Armytage in 2021.
Twenty years ago, Barr debated whether she should even take the now-coveted newsreader role. She says “the boss of this fledgling, lowly rating show called Sunrise” called her and offered her the position on the show Melissa Doyle and David Koch had been hosting for about six months.
“I thought, ‘I’m a senior reporter in the newsroom. I don’t know whether I should risk it.’ It sounds ridiculous now, given that it’s a successful juggernaut, but I took a few days before I said yes, and it was obviously the best decision of my life.”
Matteau shirt, $350. Zara trousers, $149. Country Road “Everly” mules, $179. Natalie’s own watch.Credit: JEDD COONEY
Talking to Barr evokes an overwhelming sense of familiarity, from her facial expressions to the recognisable tone of her voice. “People look at me and think, ‘Did I go to school with you or see you at the dentist last week?’ because there’s a weird recognition,” she says. “Even if people aren’t regular viewers of the show, they’ve seen me at some point over the last 20 years.”
With Koch’s departure, all eyes are now on Barr and replacement host Matt “Shirvo” Shirvington, 44, but she says it’s been as smooth a transition as she could’ve hoped for. Shirvo had filled in as co-host for the past 18 months, and Barr guessed he’d got the gig before it was announced.
The pair have known each other in a roundabout way for years. “We live in the same area, so we’d see each other in the street and say hi because we both vaguely knew who the other was,” she says. “I’d be walking up to the corner to meet my son off the school bus and he’d be walking past the same corner to get his daughter from the local school.
“This was years ago. We’ve had this weaving in and out of each other’s lives and would see each other at events and always got along. He’s the type of guy who just fits in – a really nice, normal guy with a daggy-dad sense of humour.”
Barr says she doesn’t feel any extra pressure being the more experienced of the pair. “It’s just the way it’s worked out that I’ve had all these years on the show. It’s a massive part of my life and I have developed that experience. I’m proud of that.”
“As a journalist, I was trained that people at home should not be able to tell who you vote for. I should be asking equally tough questions of both sides.”
NATALIE BARR
With Barr’s seniority, it’s likely she’ll conduct the major political interviews, something she says they’ll be doing more of on the show. It’s clear she has developed a thick skin and is ready for any scrutiny this might bring, particularly from the tabloid media.
“I don’t mind a bit of scrutiny. I mean, I’m on TV. Some people will like the way I do things, some won’t. If you can’t cope with that then I guess you shouldn’t be on TV.
“As a journalist, I was trained that people at home should not be able to tell who you vote for. I should be asking equally tough questions of both sides. I try to adjudicate and be fair – that’s important to me.“
Of course, some of the negative coverage goes further than how she has covered a story – something former hosts would attest to.
“You get personal scrutiny, horrible messages and critical articles written about you,” she says. “I think when you do a public job, it’s part and parcel. You can’t expect everyone to be writing glowing appraisals. Otherwise, don’t do it. Sometimes it hurts, sometimes it makes you want to cry, but I can’t put myself out there on national TV and take the good reactions and not the bad. That would be naive.
“Since I took over the hosting job, I made a pact with myself not to get into the comments. I turned the notifications off on Twitter years ago. People can DM me on Instagram but as soon as I get hate and abusive stuff, I block and delete. You can’t stop people being nasty, that’s just what society is like.
“As far as things being written, sometimes I’ll think, ‘That’s unfair, that’s not how it went down.’ But it’s gone tomorrow. If you start hitting back, then it becomes a bigger story.”
Barr says the very early mornings that come with breakfast television are easier now that her sons – Lachlan, 21, and Hunter, 18 – are older.
“It’s harder if you’ve got little kids and they’re waking up in the middle of the night, but I will never complain about the hours we do,” she says. “There are paramedics and nurses and doctors who do shift work and ours is not that difficult. I’m asleep by 8.30pm and I’m up around 2.30am and have a nap most days.
“I started Sunrise when Lachlan was 18 months old, then had Hunter. Their whole lives have been this show – they know what it means to me. I wasn’t ever there in the morning but my husband Drew was home, making the breakfast and school lunches, writing me a note telling me what I needed to buy for lunches the next day, and I was always there for the afternoon.
Country Road sweater, $399. Bianca Spender trousers, $445. Alinka ring. Arms of Eve earrings.Credit: JEDD COONEY
“Hunter is doing his HSC this year and Lachlan is about to finish uni in Melbourne. Your life completely changes when they stop needing you so much, but our family WhatsApp group is very active.”
Unsurprisingly, being a news junkie is a huge part of Barr’s personality. She credits her nose for news in part to her father, who watched five news bulletins every day. “There was no protection of keeping kids away from the news in my house,” she says. “We watched everything; that was my upbringing and that’s how I’ve brought my kids up.”
“Being sent to big news stories, they’re often awful stories but they’re also the big stories the world is watching and why I became a journalist.”
NATALIE BARR
But it was her first experience in a newsroom that cemented her path. The timing was everything for Barr, who had suffered a traumatic health scare which saw her spend two months lying in a hospital bed – ultimately a character-defining experience for the plucky 15-year-old from Bunbury, Western Australia.
“I got really sick with a disease in my spine called osteomyelitis,” she says. “The bug had eaten two of my vertebrae and they were crumbling. I’d had back pain and saw a physio who wrote to my doctor; I never saw what was in the note but that night I ended up in hospital, an orthopaedic surgeon telling me: ‘Lie down or you’ll never sit up again.’
“I didn’t sit up again for months. They flew me to Perth on the Royal Flying Doctor plane and gave me a lumbar puncture to find out the exact strain of the bug, then I went back to Bunbury and was on my back for the next couple of months, pumped with high-dose antibiotics.
“It was traumatic – I didn’t know if I’d be able to walk again. It was a really defining moment in my life because I was 15 and old enough to think, ‘I don’t know how I’m going to get out of this situation.’ ”
Thankfully, Barr recovered with no lasting damage, but she was weak for months. After missing a term of school, she made up for the fact she’d lost the chance to do work experience by organising her own placement at local TV station GWN7 during the Christmas holidays.
“I spent a week there and thought, ‘This is it. This is what I want to do for the rest of my life.’ It’s the most exciting thing: people race around, yell and scream at each other, race to the deadline at the end of the day, then come back and do it all again tomorrow. I couldn’t believe the vibe, the excitement, the frustration, the anger.”
Bianca Spender coat, $1095. Re/Done singlet, $100, from Farfetch. Country Road jeans, $159. Alinka “Black Caviar” black diamond ring.Credit: JEDD COONEY
The ever-changing news cycle is something she still relishes, 40 years on. “Being sent to big news stories, they’re often awful stories but they’re also the big stories the world is watching and why I became a journalist,” she says.
“I was at Barack Obama’s inauguration as he stood on the steps of a building that was built by black slaves, the first African-American president to be sworn in. People were crying and cheering and it was one of the most moving things I’ve ever experienced. I’ll never forget being in Manchester after the bombings at the Ariana Grande concert, or the Nice terror attack.”
On the future of Sunrise, Barr is optimistic. “I’ve had an amazing career so far and hope I’ve got an amazing career left,” she says. “I think we have developed a show with the same heart and soul that we started with 21 years ago and that can never change. I think Sunrise, at its essence, will always be the same. There will be tweaks, people will come and go, but it’s bigger than any one of us. And that makes me happy.”
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