Broadcaster Paul Henry is not looking to make a return to the world of current affairs. Photo / Michael Craig
Broadcaster Paul Henry is not looking to make a return to the world of current affairs. Photo / Michael Craig
After several periods away from our airwaves in a bout of “semi-retirement”, broadcaster Paul Henry is making his grand return to our TV screens as the host of Three’s new reality show, The Traitors.
However, don’t expect to see Henry fronting current affairs again any time soon.
“I hate to do anything when I’m ill-informed, And I’m not interested enough to be as informed as I would want to be to be a commentator,” Henry told Paula Bennett on her NZ Herald podcast, Ask Me Anything, when asked if he was itching to cover this year’s general election.
While he doesn’t want to front up to the politics this time around, Henry said he is informed enough to be a voter - and is not impressed with what he’s seen recently.
“You just see the decisions that are made and, you know, what have we got to be proud of in this country now? And I know that sounds really negative, but what have we got to be proud of? What can we look back on in the last three, four, five years and say, ‘My God, that was a good decision, what a plucky country we’ve got that we did that.’ I can’t think of anything I cannot think of anything.”
He in particular criticised the Government’s increased borrowing during the Covid-19 pandemic, saying that there’s been little to show for the billions in debt accumulated since then.
Henry said that while he could have stayed in New Zealand and ranted about the state of things like other commentators, he chose to head to the United States as he knew his ranting wouldn’t achieve anything. He believes that is a broader issue though of people not wanting to share their opinion.
“The sickest society is a society where people are too frightened to speak their minds. That is the sickest society, and you have people that just think, ‘Oh, can’t be faffed.’ And the country just goes to hell in a handcart.”
Paul Henry is back as the host of The Traitors. Image / Three
In spite of his views on the state of things, Henry has been courted back home to front The Traitors, the local version of the reality show that’s proved a sensation in the UK, US and Australia. The show sees a group of strangers - including a mix of famous faces - living together in one house, trying to work out who is a “faithful” and who is a “traitor”.
“South Pacific Pictures phoned me and said, look, we’re doing this programme. And I was just there rehearsing my no, which I just say to everything, and then they said, ‘We’ve just emailed you the British series before you say anything, we want you to host it, just watch it.’ And I phoned up halfway through the first episode and said, ‘I’ll do it,’ because it’s just such a good format,” Henry said.
While he’s enjoyed doing the show, Henry said he doesn’t have a great desire to do more TV, saying his career is a “joy to do, a horror to have to do it” in terms of the workload that comes with pulling off current affairs shows.
His success is something he always felt was pre-ordained, though. Henry admitted to being bullied for being poor growing up in England, with kids calling him “Jesus Boots” because of the second-hand sandals he’d wear to school, but his mother Olive helped.
“I was fortunate that I was instilled with this belief to the point that when I was living in this poverty-stricken world, I just knew that that wasn’t my future. I knew that this was some sort of bizarre little test and all these people around me who all came from richer families than me - I was very poor, but they were all poor - were all losers and I was the star of the bunch, even though I was wearing all these old clothes and slipping along and reasonably stupid at school.
“I mean, I was certainly not a star performer, didn’t work particularly hard, but I didn’t need to because I knew I was destined for brilliance.”
Listen to the full podcast to hear more from Paul Henry and Paula on living authentically, growing up poor, and his relationship with his mother.
Ask Me Anything is an NZ Herald podcast, hosted by Paula Bennett. New episodes will return in October.
