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Sunrise host Natalie Barr was reportedly ‘gutted’ by her predecessor Sam Armytage’s hurtful tweet last Monday suggesting she was desperate for the top job.
The 53-year-old was not expecting the former anchor, 44, to be so ‘snarky’ after they’d worked together on Seven’s breakfast show for years, a source told New Idea.
‘No one was more shocked and saddened over Sam’s comments than Nat,’ a source told the magazine. ‘She is gutted and has no idea why the snarkiness continues, even though Sam has been gone [from Sunrise] for months.’
Upset: Sunrise host Natalie Barr was reportedly ‘gutted’ by her predecessor Sam Armytage’s (centre) hurtful tweet last Monday suggesting she was desperate for the top job
Meanwhile, the Sunrise team is said to be trying to ‘make light’ of the situation.
The insider claimed: ‘It has got to the stage where the Sunrise gang have a bit of a laugh wondering what little surprise bombshell Sam is going to drop next.
‘But truthfully, Nat just wants it to end and be put to bed.’
Meanwhile, Natalie’s position as co-anchor is reportedly ‘safe as houses’, with Seven management happy with her performance and the ratings.
Daily Mail Australia has contacted Seven for comment and clarification.
Claims: Natalie (right) was not expecting former anchor Sam (left) to be so ‘snarky’ after they’d worked together on Seven’s breakfast show for years, a source told New Idea
Sam made headlines last Monday after she criticised Natalie on Twitter for continuing to speak about her in the press, three months after taking over as anchor of Seven’s breakfast show.
She was responding to an interview Natalie had done with The Australian Women’s Weekly in which she claimed the pair weren’t friends outside the workplace.
After brushing off a question about their rivalry on The Kyle and Jackie O Show, Sam tweeted: ‘Look, I’m out. Nat’s wanted the job forever… and she’s finally got it. She just needs to get on and enjoy it – and forget about me (even though I’m unforgettable),’ Sam tweeted, adding the hashtag #PeaceOut.
Sam was co-anchor of Sunrise from June 2013 until March this year, when she stepped down to spend more time with her family. Natalie, the show’s longtime newsreader, replaced her the week following her departure.
Sam’s tweet contradicted Natalie’s own account of her promotion to co-anchor, as she has always said she didn’t aspire to be host and was surprised when Seven offered her the job in March.
It came after Natalie revealed for the first time she didn’t have a close relationship with Sam, whom she replaced as Sunrise anchor on March 15.
When asked about rumours they did not get along, Natalie told The Australian Women’s Weekly earlier this month they weren’t friends outside the workplace.
She said that while the pair ‘got along well in the office’, they rarely spoke after the cameras stopped rolling because they didn’t have much in common.
‘The truth is we didn’t really see each other outside the office,’ Natalie said.
‘We had vastly different lives, I guess,’ the mother of two added. ‘We were in different places. She was hanging with her friends, and I was spending time with my family.
‘So, yes, we were in different places.’
Natalie’s interview came after she was reportedly rankled by comments Sam made in a newspaper column in February about working mothers in the TV industry.
Sam claimed she’d been assigned more work than her female colleagues in the past simply because she was unmarried and childless.
She said ‘bosses don’t ask as much of you if you’re a wife or mother’, adding: ‘I’ve never shied away from hard work, but there was an expectation that Sam would do it because she’s got nothing else going on.’
At the time, many TV insiders wondered how Natalie would have reacted to this bold statement, given that she regularly picks up international assignments and fills in for colleagues at short notice, despite being married with two teenage children.
For months before her departure, rumours had swirled that Sam didn’t get along with Natalie, who was Sunrise’s newsreader before stepping up to the main desk.
Sources also claimed she didn’t see eye to eye with her co-anchor David ‘Kochie’ Koch either.
These whispers were seemingly confirmed when Natalie and Kochie didn’t attend Sam’s leaving party at the Catalina restaurant in Sydney’s Rose Bay on March 11.
Eyebrows were raised yet again in May when it emerged Sam didn’t follow either of them on Instagram, despite following many other Seven colleagues.
Sam downplayed this snub on her News Corp podcast earlier this month, saying: ‘I don’t think I unfo… I don’t think anyone’s following anyone in there.’
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