Barnaby Joyce reveals the truth behind infamous video of his late-night planter box fall: ‘One bottle too many’

Barnaby Joyce has admitted he drank ‘one bottle too many’ years after footage emerged of him lying on a Canberra footpath – an incident he first blamed on a mix of alcohol and prescription medication. 

In February 2024, video first published by the Daily Mail showed the former deputy prime minister lying on the ground next to Lonsdale Street in Braddon shortly before midnight after falling from a planter.

Joyce could be heard muttering on the phone while flat on his back, including an outburst where he said, ‘dead f***ing c***’, which he later explained was directed at himself during a phone call to his wife Vikki Campion.

In the weeks after the video emerged, Joyce said the late-night fall resulted from a combination of alcohol and prescription medication. 

When Joyce was challenged by Sky News host Andrew Bolt on whether he had a problem with alcohol, he said: ‘I don’t. I can affirm that. I have a problem if you mix alcohol with medication and that was shown in brilliant form.’

More than two years after the incident, Joyce admitted he had gone ‘too far’ during Monday’s episode of ABC’s Australian Story. 

‘I just obviously went too far in one night, didn’t I?’ the now-One Nation MP said.

Asked if he had one drink too many, he replied: ‘Oh yeah, not one, maybe one bottle too many.’

Joyce added that he mainly drinks alcohol in social situations. 

‘I know my faults, right? There are times where I don’t drink at all, you know, for long periods of time,’ he said.

‘Most of the time, if I drink, I drink socially. What does that mean? You know, don’t get drunk.’

During the episode, former chief of staff Jake Smith said he was blindsided when a journalist rang him about the footage.

‘In my mind, I’m going through, “Well, it can’t possibly be him”,’ he said, adding that he then spoke to Joyce about the claims.

‘There’s this long pause and he just goes, “Well, well, well, well, well, well, I think that might have been me”.’

Smith also pushed back on suggestions that Joyce was a habitual heavy drinker.

‘He’s actually not a heavy drinker in a consistent way. When he does decide to have a drink, he can do it pretty hard,’ he said.

Campion, who also appeared in the Australian Story episode, said the incident prompted Joyce to stop drinking for a year, adding that he should take better care of his health.

‘Should he slow down? Yeah,’ she said.

‘You know, sometimes it’s frustrating because you want those best health outcomes for him.’

In the week after the footage emerged, Joyce took sole responsibility for the incident.

‘Look, I did the wrong thing and it rests on my head and that’s it. That’s all you need to say,’ he said at the time.

‘I was the one who fell off the planter box. I was the one who was videoed in the street. It’s my fault. I did the wrong thing. That’s it. The end.’

The ABC episode also examined the political fallout from footage of Joyce lying on the pavement. 

Former Nationals leader David Littleproud said the incident extinguished any support for a Joyce leadership comeback within the party. 

‘After Barnaby was found on the pavement, what little support he did have for ever wanting to return to the leadership was evaporated,’ he said.

Littleproud said he had sought to drive ‘generational change’ in the Nationals after the Coalition’s 2022 election defeat and revealed he would be unlikely to allow Joyce to return to the front bench. 

Joyce, who joined One Nation after his relationship with the Nationals soured, said those calls for renewal helped push him in a different direction.

‘I thought… generational change is an invite to dinner with Pauline Hanson,’ he said.