Spy: Broadcaster Wilhelmina Shrimpton and husband separate

Mike Sanders and Wilhelmina Shrimpton. Photo / Norrie Montgomery

Five years after their beautiful Waiheke Island vineyard wedding, broadcaster Wilhelmina Shrimpton and her husband, insurance broker Mike Sanders, have separated.

“Mike and I have indeed chosen to go our separate ways, but it’s been really positive, amicable and we remain friends,” Shrimpton tells Spy. Sanders also tells Spy the separation was mutual.

The couple have been a regular fixture of magazines and Spy’s social pages for more than a decade. Of late, Shrimpton has been seen hitting the town and at events with girlfriends. The separation is understood to have unfolded recently.

Last year they both started new jobs and moved into a new house. In January, Shrimpton was quoted in a magazine as still being happily married. The separated couple were seen out recently with mutual friends for dinner.

It’s been a few years of change in the couple’s working lives. In 2021, after seven years working for Three, Shrimpton signed off from the news-reading role she loved on Newshub, months after Discovery purchased the channel from Mediaworks.

“I loved my job, so to leave it was one of the toughest things I’ve ever experienced,” Shrimpton told the Woman’s Day last year. “I remember looking around the studio after my final night on air, thinking, ‘I’m not going to be able to do what I love any more’, and I felt incredibly sad. I got home and sat on the edge of my bed, surrounded by all these beautiful flowers my workmates had given me, and sobbed for hours.”

After a brief stint working in digital advertising, the passionate journalist was over the moon to be back doing what she loved when she landed a role at Mediaworks’ newly-launched radio station Today FM, co-hosting the drive show with former Newshub colleague Lloyd Burr. Earlier this year she started a dream role with MediaWorks as a specialist investigative journalist.

In her time with Today FM, Shrimpton was able to cement her journalism credentials, producing her own weekly podcast, The Core, investigating the issues of the day. In late March when Today FM came to an abrupt end, Shrimpton was one of many staff who suddenly found themselves without a job.

Last month at the NZ Radio Awards, she came away from the fiasco a winner, taking home two awards — Best News Journalist and Best Long Form Video, from her time at Today FM. This month the Herald’s Media Insider revealed she is launching her own media business, Wils & Co.

The business sees Shrimpton sharing her skills across the media spectrum, offering freelance journalism, broadcasting, media training, MCing, writing, podcasting and communications.

“I’m really excited to be doing a whole variety of things that light my fire, and all under the media umbrella I’ve come to love over the years,” she said at the time.

Sanders has had his share of disappointment too. He was the victim of another shock media closure at the start of the first lockdown in 2020 when Bauer closed its NZ operation, resulting in his losing his job as an advertising sales manager. A stint in commercial real estate followed, but Sanders has found his new passion working for Marsh Insurance providing risk advisory and insurance broking services, helping business owners who are struggling with overly complicated insurance policies.