Barnaby Joyce quits booze and sheds 15 kgs after ‘disgraceful’ night out in Canberra
Federal MP Barnaby Joyce has quit booze and shed 15 kgs after a drunken night out in Canberra ended with video of the politician rolling around a footpath swearing going viral.
The 57-year old said he did not remember big parts of the night - something that had never happened to him before - and decided afterwards to stop drinking.
“I never, ever want it to happen again,” he said in an interview with Nine Newspapers.
“I disgraced myself and I just woke up the next morning and said ‘that’ll do’, so I didn’t have another drink.”
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Barnaby Joyce said he “disgraced himself” while on a drunken night out in Canberra. Daily Mail Australia Credit: Supplied
The Nationals frontbencher had been sitting on a large pot plant while having an animated phone conversation with his wife Vicki Campion, when he fell off, “rolled around” on the ground and continued with his call. NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman Credit: News Corp Australia
In February, a video emerged of Mr Joyce sprawled on the footpath at Lonsdale Street, in the suburb of Braddon.
Sources told NewsWire at the time the Nationals frontbencher had been sitting on a large pot plant while having an animated phone conversation with his wife Vicki Campion when he fell off, “rolled around” on the ground and continued with his call.
An outline is seen next to a planter box where Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs Barnaby Joyce was filmed intoxicated on his back, talking in his phone at 11.30pm on a Wednesday night in Canberra. NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman Credit: News Corp Australia
Mr Joyce explained he was on prescription medication at the time and was told “certain things may happen” if he mixed alcohol with it.
“They say certain things may happen to you if you drink and they were absolutely 100 per cent right,” he told Seven’s Sunrise.
Mr Joyce has not drunk alcohol since that night and has started playing touch footy and running, losing 15 kgs in the process.