Sunrise’s Matt Shirvington & Nat Barr talk emotional moments, secret signals – and cockroaches

When Nat Barr saw the letter that South Australian police commissioner Grant Stevens had written about the death of his 18-year-old son Charlie after an alleged hit-and-run incident in November, it affected her badly. Nat, who has an 18-year-old son herself, was given the letter as she and Matt Shirvington were hosting Sunrise, right before an ad break.

“I said, ‘I don’t think I can read that,'” Nat, 55, tells TV WEEK. “I was lost for words. And Shirvo started reading it. That was an instance where I was very lucky he could pick up, because he was at least still – just – speaking.”

The following day, Nat spoke to South Australian premier Peter Malinauskas about Charlie’s death.

“Straight away, the emotion started to come in,” Matt, 45, remembers. “I just went and sat with her. I knew I wouldn’t be needed, but I think the two of us sitting together makes it a little bit easier to work through.”

It’s been just more than six months since former champion sprinter Matt took over from David “Kochie” Koch as the co-host of Sunrise. Nat, who’s been co-host for nearly three years and with the show for two decades, says Matt has settled in “better than I could have hoped, actually”.

“We’ve already got a relationship where we have our little signals and can look at each other and know when we want the other to take over,” she says. “It’s vital in our job and I probably didn’t expect it to happen so quickly. We trust and respect each other; we work really well together.”

Kochie and Matt have stayed in touch, and Matt says Kochie recently gave him some advice about being himself and not worrying about being across every detail.

“It was good to get that reinforcement that you don’t need to be perfect all the time,” Matt says. “In some ways, it’s part of the show to just ask the question you think might sound stupid, but is worthwhile asking anyway.”

Nat reveals that Matt and Kochie are more alike than people might think.

“One of the most surprising things is they have a really similar sense of humour: the ‘dad joke’ sense of humour,” she says. “I really tried to stop it – I banned it into just ad breaks – but it’s crept back into the show, so I’m now thinking I’m not going to be able to escape it.”

It’s not just the dad jokes Nat has had to put up with.

“Nat has this fear of cockroaches, and when I first started, I bought a robotic cockroach and put it out on set,” Matt recalls with a laugh. “She was so freaked out.”

As for the early starts that come with the job, Matt is now in the routine of waking up at 2.40am, reading in bed for 20 minutes and then getting ready for work.

“It was difficult early on, with the lingering fog of feeling like you’re jet-lagged,” he says, “but that disappeared after a couple of months.”

Matt, who is dad to Sienna, 17, Winnie, 15, and Lincoln, five, with author wife Jessica, has revealed Lincoln cried when he found out Matt wouldn’t be able to attend the Father’s Day breakfast at school. He admits it was hard to see his son upset.

“But there are other advantages, where you knock off earlier than most parents and you can do school pick-ups and after-school sport,” he points out.

“For someone who was a professional athlete [Matt held the Australian record for the 100 metres and competed at both the Olympic and Commonwealth Games] and then moved into sports television, having my weekends back is pretty special too.”

Nat’s older son, Lachlan, is 22 and has just finished uni in Melbourne, while 18-year-old Hunter has just finished school. Having been on Sunrise for pretty much their entire childhoods, Nat says she and her film editor husband Andrew Thompson “just stumbled our way through it”.

“Sometimes it probably didn’t work amazingly well,” she admits. “I tried to get as much sleep as I could and hurried them to bed, and I tried not to forget too many school dress-up days and had a few lunch orders along the way, and they seem relatively normal. They don’t seem to have held it against me.”

For Matt, being Sunrise host has brought not just early starts, but increased media attention. When the announcement was made, he found himself being targeted by paparazzi, with stories being run about the price of a jumper he wore.

“My privacy and home life is sacred to us and my kids,” he says. “I don’t love when that boundary is stepped over. But I understand that’s the job.”

Then there’s the ongoing ratings battle with Nine Network’s Today. Nat says there’s “healthy pressure” to remain number one.

“We’re not sweating over it every minute of every day, but it’s a competitive environment,” she says.

Matt “absolutely” felt the pressure when he took over from Kochie.

“It was daunting to come into a successful show, but what a great challenge to remain on top,” he says.

As for 2024, Matt says the whole year has been planned out for Sunrise, but Nat adds their bosses “would kill us” if they gave anything away. There will be more dad jokes, though.

“Actually, Lincoln came home the other day and he’s like, ‘We need to do a joke book,’ so he’s recruited himself,” Matt says. “He’s like, ‘Oh, that’s a good one, Dad – we’ll write that one down.’ So yeah, there’ll definitely be more dad jokes. But I don’t know if that’s going to sell the show!”