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Sam Armytage: “Thank you for having me into your lounge rooms”

Sunrise farewells Sam Armytage with an array of tributes as she thanks viewers and comments on media scrutiny.

Sunrise this morning farewelled Samantha Armytage after 8 years on air with champagne, balloons, flowers, and video messages.

The show devoted much of its final 80 minutes to a farewell tribute.

Her final show included a lengthy montage of her time on air with all the international stars that have visited Martin Place (played twice), a zoom call from her sister & niece in London, and a visit to the studio from husband Richard Lavender and labrador Banjo.

There were toasts from colleagues, a reel of her Seven journalism, and song and a quiz from Sam Mac.

There were farewell videos from Seven stars (including two Premiers and the PM), messages from viewers and a message from the Chairman Kerry Stokes.

Armytage says she has no immediate plans post-morning TV, aside from more sleep-ins, spending time with family and extra gardening.

“Not very glamorous!” she declared.

Armytage thanked her family, colleagues and crew “the best in the business” saying, “It has been an extraordinarily wild ride and I thank you for your friendship and for everything over the years.”

But she fought back tears as she said, “I do want to say that I never fully understood some of the scrutiny, the snarkiness and the bullying from some aspects of the media. But today, we move on from that because there is a new chapter starting and it has been overwhelmingly a good experience in my life.
Most of all, I thank all of our viewers who are just wonderful people. There are so many lovely people out there -so many more lovely ones, than the nasty ones.

“Thank you for having me in your lounge, having all of us in your lounge rooms. I really appreciate it more than then you know and I will miss you too. And if you see me in the supermarket come and say hi, as you often do and I love it.”

Celebrations concluded with a parody of Wind Beneath my Wings from Hans.

Armytage announced this week she was stepping back from public life to restore some peace and calm to her life after a turbulent 2020.

9 Responses

  1. Calling her out for nasty, racist comments is not bullying. I used to like Sam but really turned off her with some of her nasty comments. Be interesting to see who they replace her with. Will it be someone in house or will they try to poach an outsider from another network?

  2. Best morning TV host ever. Has it all, great interviewing skills and so much fun. Someone will offer her lots to return after she has a damn good rest.

  3. “Armytage announced this week she was stepping back from public life to restore some peace and calm to her life” ; this means “I’m now rich enough to retire”.

  4. A really lovely farewell! So easy to see that, unlike the magazines suggest, the sunrise ‘family’ really do love each other. 7 do these sorts of things really well. If only Lisa got her farewell from Today those years ago. Good Job Sam and look forward to seeing what you do next….. maybe even a new series of Bringing Sexy Back! Haha

    1. Reminds me of an episode of Frontline, where the publicist character says:
      ‘this is television, darling. Everybody hates everybody else, that’s why we spend so much time promoting how well we all get on’

    2. The Today Show had had a big celebration for Lisa’s 10th anniversary with the show a few weeks earlier. She left suddenly with no warning so there wasn’t really a chance to do a farewell.

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