Age Of Wisdom

Sunrise Newsreader Natalie Barr Talks About Her Big Birthday, Struggles With Motherhood and the Diagnosis That Changed Her Life Forever.

- Paul Ewart

She’s the face we switch on to for our morning news hit. For 15 years, news presenter Natalie Barr has been delivering the latest news and current affairs as part of Channel 7’s core team of presenters on hit breakfast show Sunrise. But when the cameras stop rolling at 9 am, Natalie slips back into her other key role as busy working mum struggling to fit in exercise, and to make sure her family have a healthy dinner on the table.

“Totally!” she says, laughing. “That’s the other side of my life. The makeup comes off, the flat shoes and jeans go on and I have to do all those regular ‘mum things’ like shopping for groceries, picking the kids up from school, taking them to basketball, making dinner and then doing it all over again!”

Dressed down, bare faced and struggling through a head cold when Good Health catches up with her, she apologies for her husky voice and admits that she’s just woken from a lunchtime nap (understandable when your alarm goes off at 3 am every weekday morning).

Shock phone call

A native of Bunbury, Western Australia, Natalie worked in local radio, TV and newspapers before moving stateside for a stint in LA. Returning down under in 1994, she joined Channel 7 as a news reporter and nine years later signed up to a then-fledgling Sunrise as its news presenter – a role she has held ever since.

Yes, Natalie has known real success, but she’s also known real loss. Back in 2001 while six months pregnant with her first child, Lachlan, her career soaring, she received a phone call that brought devastating news.

“I had just finished a news bulletin, drove home and got a call informing me that my dad had died of a sudden massive heart attack after golf,” says Natalie, her eyes welling with tears.