Sunrise host Natalie Barr has labelled Meghan Markle a ‘tosser’ in an extraordinary on-air rant after the Duchess of Sussex compared herself to Nelson Mandela in her new interview with The Cut magazine.
The former Suits actress, 41, claimed she was told by a cast member of the Lion King in 2019 that South Africans had ‘danced in the street’ when she married Prince Harry – just like they did when ‘Mandela was freed from prison’.
Barr, 54, who is known for her more conservative broadcasting style, was uncharacteristically candid on Tuesday as she told her co-anchor David ‘Kochie’ Koch she ‘couldn’t even stomach getting through the whole article’.
Sunrise host Natalie Barr (left, with David Koch) has labelled Meghan Markle a ‘tosser’ in an extraordinary on-air rant after the Duchess of Sussex compared herself to Nelson Mandela
‘I think in Australia we’d say she’s just full of it. She’s a tosser. She’s a total tosser! That’s how we would describe her. I just can’t… the way she speaks,’ she added.
‘Tosser’ is a mildly insulting slang term in Australia for an obnoxious person.
Newsreader Edwina Bartholomew offered a more diplomatic response to Meghan’s claims, telling the panel: ‘I think she has a very different narrative, perhaps, in the U.S. to what is being accepted in the UK.’
The Duchess of Sussex, 41, told The Cut (pictured on the magazine’s cover) she was told by a cast member of the Lion King in 2019 that South Africans had ‘danced in the street’ when she married Prince Harry – just like they did when ‘Mandela was freed from prison’
‘Or just everywhere in the world!’ Barr scoffed, as Koch joked: ‘That’s Eddie’s code for “tosser”.’
Mandela spent 27 years in prison for opposing South Africa’s apartheid system.
After he was released, he helped negotiate an end to apartheid and became the first democratically elected president of South Africa.
Newsreader Edwina Bartholomew offered a more diplomatic response, telling the panel: ‘I think she has a different narrative, perhaps, in the U.S. to what is being accepted in the UK’
Nelson Mandela, accompanied by his wife Winnie, raises his hand in celebration as he walks out of the Victor Verster prison, near Cape Town, on February 11, 1990, after spending 27 years in apartheid jails
The hosts of rival breakfast show Today also mocked Markle’s interview on Tuesday.
Karl Stefanovic, who has never been shy to criticise Meghan, scoffed incredulously at Markle’s claims while speaking to Nine’s London correspondent Tracy Vo.
‘It’s hard to see how that would sit with [the Royal Family], especially the Mandela references,’ the 48-year-old remarked, as his co-host Allison Langdon added: ‘That one, I feel, is tone-deaf.’
Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, is pictured at his wedding to Meghan Markle in May 2018
Feigning compassion, Stefanovic later joked: ‘I think [Meghan is] probably a little misunderstood, don’t you reckon?’
Langdon, 43, whose distaste for the Sussexes is well-documented, smirked: ‘Oh, you’re changing your tune, are you, Karl?’
‘Yeah, I think it’s time to support her, especially after the Mandela comments. Anyone who compares themselves to Mandela, I think, is fair enough,’ he said, bursting into laughter.
The hosts of rival breakfast show Today also mocked Markle’s interview on Tuesday. (Pictured: Karl Stefanovic, left, and Allison Langdon, right)
‘Even if it was said… to share that… Anyway, they’re living their “quiet life”, as they wished,’ Langdon replied, rolling her eyes.
It comes as Meghan’s interview with The Cut – part of New York magazine – continues to spark backlash.
In it, she claimed she and Prince Harry were ‘happy’ to leave Britain and were ‘upsetting the dynamic of the hierarchy… just by existing’ before they stepped down as frontline royals and moved to North America.
Langdon said of Markle’s Mandela comparison: ‘That one, I feel, is tone-deaf’
Her interview with The Cut was published just days after Meghan used her new Spotify podcast to complain how she had to continue engagements on a royal tour in South Africa after a fire in her son Archie’s bedroom
She also claimed that what the couple asked for when they wanted financial freedom was not ‘reinventing the wheel’.
The Cut reported that Meghan listed a ‘handful of princes and princesses and dukes who have the very arrangement they wanted’, although none of these royals was named in the article.
The interview was released after it was claimed Harry and Meghan will not see the Queen at Balmoral when they visit Britain next week amid an ongoing security row.
It was also published just days after Meghan used her new Spotify podcast to complain how she had to continue engagements on a royal tour in South Africa after a fire in son Archie’s bedroom.
The Duchess also hit out at those who criticised her for being ‘ambitious’ when she started dating Harry, in a chat with tennis legend Serena Williams.
Meghan (pictured with husband Prince Harry and son Archie) said she was left shaken after her then-newborn son’s nursery caught on fire during the Sussexes’ tour of South Africa in 2019. The baby wasn’t in the room at the time, but Meghan said she was so rattled that she struggled to attend a royal engagement later that day
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