Vikki Campion, the former media adviser and now partner of Australian politician Barnaby Joyce famously defended her affair with the married father-of-four daughters, in a paid TV interview saying, “You can’t help who you fall in love with.”
But if Barnaby’s ex-wife Natalie Joyce’s recent comments in this month’s Australian Women’s Weekly are anything to go by, the 33-year-old first-time mum may have been able to “help” it, had she not bombarded the married politician with 20 phone calls a day.
“She wanted my life from the get-go,” Natalie Joyce says of Vikki Campion.
Speaking exclusively with the glossy mag, Natalie revealed her efforts to salvage the couple’s 24-year marriage, and the lengths Vikki would go, to ensure her relationship with Barnaby succeeded.
Barnaby had asked his wife to join him on an official trip to the UK, Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands.
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“I gave it one last shot,” Natalie said.
“Apparently [Vikki] had given ‘her permission’ for me to go. I thought that he needed me by his side.”
“At one time, we’d been a good team. So I agreed on one condition — no contact with her for two weeks — but she was relentless and called sometimes 20 times a day.”
Barnaby Joyce’s ex-wife Natalie spoke exclusively to The Weekly.
According to Natalie, it was after that trip she knew their marriage was ending.
“I stood there paralysed, my stomach wrenched in a million knots, and I knew then the marriage was all but over.”
Natalie, Barnaby and their daughters Bridgette, Odette, Caroline and Julia in 2015.
In the unpaid interview with The Weekly, a stoic and inspirational Natalie told her side of the illicit affair that unfolded very publicly in front of the nation’s eyes.
“She wanted my life from the get-go,” says Natalie of the woman who had an affair with her husband. “This was a whole lot more than a fleeting office romance.”
Natalie spoke candidly and in detail about the “worst two years of her life”, she even explained the moment the media unflattering dubbed ‘The Tamworth Showdown’, when she confronted Vikki.
“I was very measured,” says Natalie, “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.”
“I’m proud I stood up to her,” says Natalie of the moment she confronted Vikki and Barnaby.
Read the full exclusive interview and photos, only in this month’s Australian Women’s Weekly.
