“I was furious”: Natalie Barr reflects on devastating moment in her career
She’s a household name now thanks to her role on Sunrise, but Natalie Barr has looked back at one of the most devastating setbacks in her career.
Sitting down with Stellar Magazine, Barr recalls the year 2001 where she was having a particularly 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 died of a heart attack at the age of 61.
Months later, after only being back at work for a few short weeks, she was juggling her grief with a newborn who still wasn’t sleeping when she found out the bad news: Her news reading role was given to someone else and she was heading back into the pool of reporters.
“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 was contacted by broadcasting wunderkind Adam Boland asking if she would want to be a part of the new-look Sunrise as it rivaled with Nine Network’s Today.
And the rest is history, as Barr proved to be a hit with viewers since joining the program in 2003.
“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.”