“It was when Facebook Live was all the rage, right? And, Paddy [Gower] had sent me down to Queenstown. The Five Eyes spies were having a big meeting at the Millbrook golfing resort. I went there, I bought a selfie stick and I was on the Newshub Politics Facebook page, and I was just doing a walkthrough to see if the security guards would come after me.
“And the police did and I thought it was hilarious, but it wasn’t really that funny, but lots of the comments came up and one of them was ‘Newschub’. And it was at that point at which I was like, it does suck being a fat person on TV.”
Bennett, who had been in Parliament for nine years before having the surgery, echoed those feelings, acknowledging that constantly being aware of her weight got to her.
“I used to say to [Sir] John Key, it’s actually quite exhausting. When I would sit on a plane, I’m so conscious that I’m spilling over the seat that I’m actually holding my stomach and clenching my muscles so that I’m not touching the people next to me. I sit like that for an hour four times a week as I fly around this country for my job. It’s exhausting - like, it’s physically exhausting.”
She said that she often used to choose longer routes that had less of a slope or fewer stairs, opting to be late rather than arriving to a meeting breathless or sweating.
Yet after she had the surgery, Bennett said she was recommended not to go public with the news, despite the fact she was clearly shedding weight before the public’s eyes, which was a debate Burr had as well.
He had the surgery during a week of leave, when his camera operator was changing over and he couldn’t be on air anyway. Burr had the surgery close to winter, so initially was covered up in big jackets, but when summer came and he had lost 25kgs in six months, not acknowledging it led to more speculation.
“People were thinking, ‘Oh God, he’s got Aids’, ‘cause I’m gay. It was Aids or ‘he’s got a cocaine problem’ or ‘he’s got cancer’. So I just had to tell people.”
Both Bennett and Burr said that despite loving the results of the surgery, there is a feeling of shame at first around opting for that path over natural intervention.
“I never felt this actually, but my mate Chester [Borrows], who was an MP, he used to say to me, ‘I feel so ashamed that I couldn’t do it myself and that I had to have surgery’,” Bennett said.
“Before the surgery, I’d done four half-marathons and I’d been running, but it’s just like, what else is there for me to do?” Burr said.
“And so I’ve tried it and maybe I feel like a little bit like that I’d failed and I couldn’t do it myself, but there’s just so many different factors that go into weight gain and being big.”
Listen to the full episode for more from Burr on bariatric surgery, the closure of Newshub, and how Barry Soper helped him to come out as gay.
Ask Me Anything is an NZ Herald podcast hosted by former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett. New episodes are available every Sunday.
You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
