Barnaby Joyce’s wife Vikki Campion has opened up about the aftermath of their affair becoming public, saying she was “suicidal”.
Ms Campion, who started a relationship with Mr Joyce, while she was working as his media adviser, was pregnant with his baby when she was papped with a burgeoning bump.
The subsequent front page story of The Daily Telegraph featured an image of her with the headline: “Bundle of Joyce”.
“I remember that day very well,” Ms Campion told Australian Story.
“I was walking across a road and a car pulled out and drove right up to me and blared the horn and so that’s where they got that iconic photo.
“I waddled, kind of, into a service station. (I knew there) was no point calling him (Barnaby) so I called my brother. I got in the car with him, and then it was like, ‘OK, take me out of here.’ and then I just didn’t go home again for a really long time.
“I moved house three times in my third trimester.”
Mr Joyce was married with four children when the affair took place but told the ABC that he apologised to wife Natalie and despite their break up they remain civil.
Ms Campion, 41, said she never expected to raise a baby with Mr Joyce and was shocked when then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull gave a bombshell interview about their affair.
Speaking to journalists Mr Turnbull said: “Barnaby made a shocking error of judgement in having an affair with a young woman working in his office. In doing so, he has set off a world of woe for those women and appalled all of us.”
Speaking about the press conference, Ms Campion said: “So when Malcolm Turnbull did the press conference, I was suicidal.
“He had no idea about my side of the story.
“I think the only time I was happy over that period was when I had a solid plan to end it all.”
After news of Mr Joyce’s affair broke a woman came forward with an allegation of sexual harassment that eventually sparked his resignation as deputy prime minister. An internal investigation found no evidence of wrongdoing by Mr Joyce.
“Of all the things in my career, the one that really gets under my skin some form of molestation by me, is the allegation of ‘cause it is not the truth,” he said.
Ms Campion says she recalls little of that time as she was struggling so much with her mental health.
“People were like, ‘Well, why didn’t you and Barnaby do this? ‘Why didn’t you and Barnaby do that?’ I didn’t think there WAS a me and Barnaby.
“I loved Barnaby but I didn’t think that I would be raising this child with Barnaby. I had very bad post-partum depression.
“It was very isolating. I was very alone.
“I was just so completely and utterly broken. That’s why I was happy to basically move off the grid.”
Mr Joyce and Ms Campion moved a rural property in Woolbrook, in Queensland, where they are raising their two boys.
“I moved to Woolbrook because… ..it’s a long way for any camera crew to come. I was really looking for something which was secluded enough to get away from the chaos,” she said.
Mr Joyce defected from the Nationals to Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party last year.
Speaking about his regrets he said he “wished I had by time again with the girls”, saying he was in such a hurry to “change the world” he “just left them behind and sort of disappeared out the door.”