Paul Henry shared wild tales from his career as a journalist. Photo / Michael Craig
Paul Henry shared wild tales from his career as a journalist. Photo / Michael Craig
Broadcaster Paul Henry has joined Max Key for the inaugural episode of his Key’d Up podcast, sharing wild tales from his career as a journalist - including the time he attacked a “Pygmy” with a guitar.
The former Breakfast host, introduced by Key as a good family friend and the “GOAT of New Zealand media”, recalled entertaining anecdotes from his career in radio and television after telling the former Prime Minister’s son that he knew he was “destined for greatness” from a young age.
After recounting the early days of his career, Henry described how he travelled the world’s conflict zones, often putting himself at great risk to chase stories
He shared details from his visit to Uganda, and his mission inside the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest to investigate the kidnapping of New Zealander Douglas Kear by the Interahamwe rebel group in 1998.
He said he didn’t realise the extent of the danger he was in until some of the team working with him were killed.
His precarious position was highlighted by an ominous call from the British attache in Kampala, who called and told Henry that he was being “hunted down” and no assistance would be offered.
He said his subsequent decision to meet with the guerrilla group was “foolish”.
He also shared what he said was one of the key lessons he learned from his time in Africa.
“One of the take-homes I have from working in the bush in Africa: Never, ever drink with a Pygmy,” he told Key as his host laughed.
Max Key and Paul Henry.
Henry said he was framing the story as “just my experience” and telling listeners he did not mean to cast aspersions.
He told Key that he “once had a fight with a Pygmy”, telling the story of how a night around the fireplace was interrupted by a Pygmy man with a homemade guitar who wanted to be paid for playing a song, or “a noise after a fashion” as Henry described it.
As he and Key continued to laugh about the incident, Henry said: “He decided when he saw me that he could extort money out of me by playing a tune.
“So he comes over and plays a tune and there’s something charming about it to start with, you know, but he was nasty and drunk, drunk and nasty actually cause he might have been alright when he wasn’t drunk.”
Henry said the man got “very belligerent” and “physical” and “started gesticulating the guitar in my direction”.
“So anyway, I grabbed the guitar out his hand and smashed it over his head and it blew into like 1000 pieces, not his head, the guitar, and he just, you know, trucked off into the bush and everyone cheered and we had a great night.”
Paul Henry as Prime Minister
Asked what he would do if he were to lead the nation, Henry, a former National Party candidate, told Key that he would “stop spending money and wasting time on bureaucratic changes which don’t address immediate problems”.
“How is it acceptable that we have child poverty and crimes against children to the level that we have?” he asked.
He took aim at Labour’s response to Covid, telling Key that the Government has an “extraordinary opportunity” to borrow money without question, saying that the opportunity was for New Zealand to come out of Covid in a better shape than we entered it.
“They didn’t do that,” he said.
The pair also discussed Jacinda Ardern’s resignation, with Henry saying the former PM likely made the move in part because she believed it gave her party a better shot at retaining power.
“That was very well-calculated and positioned, manoeuvred.
“And as we can see from the results now, from opinion polls, it has at least temporarily improved their chances.”
Key shared his concerns, which he said he also shared with his father, that John Key’s resignation may have set a bad precedent for leaders to step down during their term.
