Sunrise co-host Matt Shirvington has opened up on the moment he nearly “ghosted” Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
He made the incredible confession on Friday morning radio as he chatted to Fitzy & Wippa with Kate Ritchie on NOVA.
Shirvo revealed that the night before he began co-hosting alongside Natalie Barr – replacing breakfast TV legend David “Kochie” Koch after 21 years in the role – he saw a phone call coming through from a number he didn’t know.
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“You know, the night before I started on Sunrise, the PM called me,” Shirvo began.
“Are you serious?” Fitzy said.
“No he did, he did,” Shirvo then assured the radio crew.
Fitzy asked if “Albo” had called from a private number or whether someone had put him through.
That’s when Shirvo confessed he almost didn’t answer the call.
“(It was) a number I didn’t recognise and I was like, ‘Ah, do I ghost this one?’
“Is it gonna be some sort of cold call for energy?
“I answered, and he said ‘it’s the prime minister.’
“And I was like, ‘Albo, how’s it going?’
“And he just wished me all the best (for) the next day.”
Kate Ritchie then asked Shirvo if it might have been an accidental call.
“Was it a butt dial and he thought, ‘Oh no, now I have to wish him all the best?’,” she asked.
Added Fitzy: “Did he also say, ‘Shirvo, congratulations, really proud of you, well done, just go easy on me when I’m on Sunrise?’”
That lead Shirvo to confess that he found politicians the hardest to interview – but he had a very experienced professional in Nat Barr sitting next to him.
“I’m getting used to the interrogation of pollies (politicians),” he said.
“This is a new kind of sport for me, politics.”
“Luckily, you’ve got Nat sitting beside you, she’s pretty amazing with all that stuff, isn’t she?” Ritchie said.
Shirvo recalled a recent interview between two politicians, whom he did not name, who were “going at each other”.
“I was in the middle (of it) and we’re running out of time,” he recalled.
“Like, you’ve only got so much time and they were just going ‘na na na na na na’ at each other.
“I just had to cut them off.
“I said, ‘Sorry. We’re out of time guys, gotta go’.”
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