Barnaby Joyce, Vikki Campion wedding: Ex-wife, daughters speak
Barnaby Joyce’s first wife Natalie Abberfield has broken her silence on his “bush-bash” wedding to former mistress Vikki Campion.
Declaring she had “moved on” from the heartbreak of learning her 24-year marriage to Mr Joyce was over, Ms Abberfield said life was now good for her family.
“All I want to say is, I would just like to wish the happy couple all the best,’’ she told news.com.au.
Natalie’s gracious message came as her daughter Odette, 20, revealed she was not invited to the wedding and regarded the media circus that surrounded it as “tacky.”
Since the end of her marriage, Natalie Abberfield has found a new passion in bodybuilding, is working as a supervisor at a childcare centre and remains close to her adult daughters, none of whom attended the wedding.
“I am just looking after me and no one else I suppose,’’ she said.
“That’s probably it. Yeah. I’ve got a really good group of friends. My family is great. The girls are great. Yeah. I’ve moved on now. Totally moved on.”
“I suppose that was one chapter of my book and now I am in a few new chapters of my book.”
Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce 56, and Vikki Campion, 38, exchanged vows at his family’s property at Woolbrook in the NSW Northern Tablelands, on Sunday.
Their young sons Thomas and Sebastian, aged four and five, were present but his four adult daughters Odette, 20, Caroline, 23, Julia, 24, Bridgette, 26 were not present.
Mother of four Natalie Abberfield, who has returned to her maiden name, has previously revealed how she took up the sport as a way to “escape” the chaos in her post-divorce life.
“I didn’t see my bodybuilding as a tool to get a ‘revenge body’ like the media suggested,” she said.
“It allowed me to find my identity again. To become me, Natalie, the person I had been before I became a wife and mother.
“My marriage had ended and I was consumed with this overwhelming feeling of grief and the burning question, ‘Well, what now? I’m not needed anymore’.”
After the affair became public, then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull described Mr Joyce’s behaviour as “a shocking error of judgment”.
“I think we know that the real issue is the terrible hurt and humiliation that Barnaby, by his conduct, has visited on his wife, Natalie and their daughters and indeed, his new partner,” he said at the time.
Barnaby Joyce’s youngest daughter Odette has confirmed none of his four daughters attended the wedding.
“Personally I wasn’t invited to the wedding, I wasn’t even told about it from my father, I found out through other sources,’’ she told The Daily Mail.
“If my father doesn’t want to think about me or even consider me in the decisions he makes that ultimately affect me then frankly I don’t have the time to think about him.’
Odette criticised her father’s decision to allow a media photographer to shoot the nuptials.
“I also think getting the media involved and having them at the wedding is not only tacky but poor taste,” she said.
Last month, Julia Joyce posted an Instagram video wearing a bridal dress while her mother appeared to wear a veil.
The video was captioned: ‘Getting ready to crash my dad’s wedding I didn’t get invited to, in my mum’s wedding dress’.
The video showed Julia walking down a hallway in the gown, before Joyce’s ex-wife Natalie makes a quick appearance wearing a veil.
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Ms Abberfield said the video, which also featured her running across a screen wearing a veil, was “for a laugh.”
That was just taking the mickey,’’ she said.
“They’ve all tried my wedding dress on.”
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