Natalie Barr hits back at Kyle Sandilands for calling her ‘cold’

Sunrise’s Natalie Barr faced off with Kyle Sandilands on live radio on Monday morning after he sensationally called her ‘cold’ and claimed she doesn’t deserve to replace Sam Armytage.

Confronting the shock jock, 49, on Monday’s Kyle And Jackie O Show, Natalie, 52, insisted that he doesn’t know her well enough to make such a claim.   

‘Sorry Kyle, I actually have not met you in person, but maybe if you met me in person you’d see that I’m not that cold,’ she said. 

Kyle reminded Natalie that he’d formed his opinions about her personality purely based on how she appears on camera. 

‘You’re just reading the news when I’ve seen you, so I don’t know your personality,’ he said, before attempting to veer the conversation towards the general topic media scrutiny. 

‘Are you worried that people will start judging you on your personality, not just great newsreading skills?’ Kyle asked. 

Playfully hitting back, Natalie said: ‘Well, I wasn’t until now, until you piped up!’

Kyle roared with laughter, as Jackie interjected: ‘Oh, look what you’ve done [Kyle]! Don’t worry about it Natalie, he’s fine!’  

It didn’t take long for Kyle to put his foot in his mouth again, however. 

Later in the segment, Kyle defended statements he’d made about Natalie being a ‘hanger on’ who didn’t deserve Samantha Armytage’s job.   

‘I was just thinking out loud… I was wondering, ‘Gee, what happens if it doesn’t work? This will be a career suicide,” he explained.  

‘Oh! Here you are slamming me again!’ Natalie replied, while Jackie turned to Kyle and scolded him: ‘Just stop! You’re digging deeper!’  

However, Kyle insisted that doesn’t want Natalie to fail and wishes her nothing but the best. 

‘I just want it to work well for you. I don’t want you to have that plum gig, and then like, imagine if it just implodes. Disaster!’ he said.  

‘Yeah… well thanks for putting those extra doubts in my mind!’ Natalie replied in mock outrage. 

The segment ended on a positive tone, however, with Natalie confirming that she and Kyle are friends. 

‘Don’t doubt yourself, you’ll be very good,’ Kyle told her.   

Earlier on Monday’s broadcast, Kyle took a savage swipe at Natalie by suggesting the veteran newsreader only got Sam’s job because she’d waited in the wings for so long. 

‘Natalie’s a great newsreader – not taking anything away from her success – but I think you can’t just hang around,’ he said.

‘It’s like me leaving and Intern Pete [Deppeler, KIIS FM producer and occasional on-air personality] being given my job, just because he’s here,’ he added.

Kyle’s co-host Jackie ‘O’ Henderson was shocked by his harsh feedback, saying: ‘Oh, my god. There’s nothing comparing Nat to Intern Pete! Not to offend you [Pete]!’  

‘Okay, maybe you’re right, Jackie,’ Kyle conceded. 

‘It would be like me leaving and just [being] replaced by Brooklyn [Ross, KIIS FM newsreader]. Quality broadcaster, but doesn’t hold a candle to my level,’ he added.   

A shocked Brooklyn interjected: ‘I don’t know. Nat’s not bad!’ 

‘That’s not what you want. You don’t want someone who’s “not bad”,’ Kyle replied, hinting that Seven should have hired somebody new as host.

He then added: ‘You don’t just get a guernsey because you’re hanging around.’

Kyle also criticised Natalie’s personality, calling the esteemed journalist ‘cold’.

‘I find her a little cold, just quietly. I’ve never met her, mind you. Just watched her on TV. And maybe I find her cold because she’s just reading news,’ he shrugged.

Later in the broadcast, Kyle said he didn’t object to Natalie getting the job but felt Seven would be better off trying someone new.