Natalie Joyce breaks silence: ‘How could he overlook our girls?’

Natalie Joyce says she had to resist “throwing a brick at the TV” while she watched her estranged husband talk about his “happy” new life in a paid interview with Sunday Night earlier this month.

Natalie has broken her silence in an exclusive interview with Women’s Weekly, and revealed the deep hurt caused by Barnby Joyce’s affair with his former staffer Vikki Campion.

During the wide-ranging chat, Natalie slammed her former husband and Vikki for accepting an estimated $150,000 for the Channel 7 interview and called the segment “an absolute disgrace”.

“I wasn’t surprised she 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?” she told Women’s Weekly.

“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!”

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According to the magazine, Natalie blames Vikki for destroying her family and says she stole her life. Natalie was not paid for her interview with the publication and says she spoke out to set the record straight and defend her family name for the sake of her four daughters Bridgette, 21, Julia, 20, Caroline, 18, and Odette, 15.

“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.”

Read more: Vikki Campion apologises for hurt caused by affair

News of the former Nationals leader’s affair with his ex-staffer broke in February, when a photo of Vikki six months pregnant was splashed across the front page of the Daily Telegraph with the headline, “bundle of Joyce”.

The new couple said in their Sunday Night interview they were upset the paper had made their private life public and insisted they were speaking out in a bid to quell the constant harassment by photographers trying to capture shots of them together with their new son, Sebastian.

“Everybody else is making money out of Sebastian except for Sebastian … Let’s take some that, put it in a trust, and he can use that for his education and his health,” Campion said. “Not a cent is going to us, this is a trust account for Sebastian. Nothing’s going to me, nothing’s going to Vikki, this is for a young bloke called Sebastian Joyce,” Joyce added.

Sunday Night reported that the couple’s affair – although Joyce refused in the interview to characterise it as such – started in late 2016 and was the subject of rumour in political circles by April 2017. She learned she was pregnant in “late winter” of 2017.

What are your thoughts on Natalie’s comments? Would you have spoken out too?