Barnaby Joyce’s estranged wife Natalie has finally broken her silence on his affair with former staffer Vikki Campion.
Speaking to Australian Women’s Weekly, Natalie set the record straight about the man she called ‘Barney’ and the TV interview he and new partner Vikki Campion gave following the birth of their son.
‘I wasn’t surprised she [Vikki] sold their ‘exclusive’ story, and certainly not surprised the $150,000 went to her child, but it begs the question, if Barney agreed to be a part of it, how could he allow his four girls to be overlooked?’ Natalie told the publication.
‘In saying that, I wouldn’t want a cent of that money. It was all we could do to watch it without throwing a brick at the TV!’
Speaking to journalist and friend Lizzie Wilson, Natalie said she was sharing her story to he heard.
‘I’m normally a very private person but I knew I had to find my voice. They thought I would lie down, but this time I couldn’t,’ she said.
‘I’m doing this so the girls feel empowered, and know their mum stood up and defended our fine name.’
Earlier this month, Barnaby and Vikki gave an exclusive TV tell-all about their relationship –and their new son Sebastian Curtis Scott Joyce. The couple were clear that the money they received would be put into a trust fund for him to access when he is older.
‘You just look at these two blue eyes staring up at the blue sky and… you think, “Boy, you caused some problems!” ’ former Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby, 51, said during the TV interview.
Opening up about the moment she discovered she was pregnant, Vikki – who at 32 is almost two decades younger than Barnaby, – candidly said that excitement wasn’t the first thing she felt.
‘I felt… overwhelmed by the complexity of the situation which we had caused ourselves,’ she said.
‘Barnaby is strongly pro-life… I believe that a woman has a right over her own body up to a point, certainly up until the baby has a heartbeat.
‘I thought, well, maybe I should just take matters into my own hands and basically save everything from happening… by considering an abortion.
‘I tried and I couldn’t go through with that,’ she added.
‘I bought the medicine online – you can’t do it in the ACT. I drove interstate… I walked in and I walked out again.’
The former Deputy PM said he felt he was ‘living a lie’ as he kept up the appearance of being in a happy marriage with his wife – something he is ‘not proud of ’.
‘I have failed, I failed, I failed, I failed, I failed… and I am sorry,’ the now-father-of-five said.
‘The biggest failure of my life was the failure of my marriage… but you just can’t live your life beating yourself up.’
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