When she's at home with her family, Pippa Wetzell forgets about her television persona. Photo / Jae Frew
When she's at home with her family, Pippa Wetzell forgets about her television persona. Photo / Jae Frew
While motherhood might feel like an area where people never seem short of an opinion, Pippa Wetzell is not here to give you any parenting advice.
Despite the fact that she has a very happy home life with her three children – Brodie, 14, Cameron, 11, and Taj, 10, – the TVNZ 1 star is keen to impress that she and husband Torrin Crowther are "just muddling through, to be honest".
The 44-year-old is a big believer, however, that "good role-modelling is the most important thing you can do for them". Particularly when it comes to raising two girls with healthy body images, she's very aware of walking the talk.
"My kids are very used to seeing me not looking particularly glamorous and eating whatever," she says. "I'm very normal in that I have times where I think, 'Oh, I wish I was a few kilos lighter,' or, 'I wish this was a bit more this or a bit less this...' But I'm okay with that."
Balancing the childhood fixation on fast food with the teenage need for good fuel – particularly over summer, with multiple trips to the dairy for icecreams – is always a conversation that comes from a health perspective, not a beauty one, Pippa says.
"I had someone close to me – when I was my daughter's age – suffer from anorexia and even though it was a long time ago, I watch my girls and how they think about food, and they don't even think about it. They have a great relationship with food, which is something I'm so grateful for as I get a lot of enjoyment out of food as well. My view and the way that we approach parenthood is that we're the role models in terms of how you feel about yourself and how you look."
Even though she's been on screens since the early 2000s, including leading popular shows like Breakfast and Fair Go, Pippa says she feels quite separate from her television persona.
"It doesn't really feel like who I am – I forget that, for most people, that's what they see of me," she smiles, gesturing to her face, which is being expertly attended to by TVNZ makeup artist Lisa Matson. "We were boating over the holidays and I went for weeks without any makeup. I don't even think I used moisturiser – just sunscreen."
She jokes that her summer look was like the classic "togs, togs, undies" Trumpet ad, which posed the important question, "How far away from the beach does your swimsuit become underwear?"
Pippa laughs, "As long as I was in a suitable environment, it felt fine. But we were up in the Bay of Islands and as we were driving home, we stopped off for dinner on the way. I went into the bathroom and when I looked in the mirror, it was just this unwashed, unbrushed sight – an absolute mess. I was far too far away from somewhere where that would have been acceptable."
But it fits with her belief in role-modelling for the kids and also her top tip for overall wellness: "Just being around the right people – having really, really good friends who enhance your life. Everything else just stems from feeling positive about things."
This low-key attitude is definitely reflected in Pippa's online presence – or lack thereof. As someone with an extremely public role, who's been a household name for coming on two decades, she is extremely good at flying under the radar in her personal life.
"A couple of years ago, we had a young guy start at TVNZ who was in charge of the social media. I was telling him how my kids were always giving me grief about my Instagram. One of them had said, 'Mum, Toni [Street] has got, like, 45,000 followers and you've only got 17!'
"And this lovely guy said, 'Wow! Have you got 17,000 followers?' And I replied, 'No, 17.' He was surprised to know it was possible to have such a low number."
For the record, Pippa now has closer to 50 followers, though she still hasn't posted any pictures. She explains, "It's not a conscious decision – I can't be bothered. It also doesn't come naturally to share things like that."
She joined when her daughters were old enough to be interested in Instagram, so that she could know something about the online world. "I just wanted to be aware enough to not be completely ignorant ... Turns out I'm still completely ignorant!"
Her decision to work her television career around her kids is clearly one that she takes very seriously. Photo / Jae Frew
The rise of social media is the biggest contrast between the reality of being a young person now and being one back when Pippa was a teenager. "The fundamental difference – in just one generation – is that their lives are so heavily influenced by phones and technology. Not only in how they communicate, but what they know."
She cites an example from the other day, when Brodie casually asked Torrin, "What do you make of the whole GameStop thing, Dad?" This was in reference to the internet-driven takeover of Wall Street, back in early February, which was confusing enough that even grown adults had to google it.
Pippa recalls, "They had this entire conversation about it and I was like, 'Well, I've certainly missed something here,' whereas Brodie knew the entire topic straight away. In our day, it was about reading the newspaper or sitting down to watch the 6pm news if you wanted to be informed.
"Now there are so many elements of social media and information overload that as a parent, you can't control it any way. You just have to go, 'Okay, well, I hope I've given you the right foundations to make good decisions.' They have to have that bit of freedom, don't they?"
In today's age of helicopter parenting, this laid-back approach feels pretty refreshing. Turns out, it's exactly what Pippa's mother Carol modelled for her and her two sisters.
"Mum never had any restrictions on us. We never had a curfew. I remember saying to her once when we were all teenagers, 'Mum, how come you never wait up for us when we go out at night?' And she replied, 'Well, I figure if something goes wrong, I'm always better to be well-rested!'
"I'm not quite as relaxed as that, but she would quite happily head to bed and not give it a second thought because she was confident that we would make good decisions. And so, partly because of that, we did."
This is the last year Pippa will have a child at primary school – Taj, her youngest, will graduate at the end of 2021 and his elder sisters are worried about how Mum is going to handle it.
"The girls are already saying to me, 'Are you going to be a complete wreck?', and it's like, 'Probably, yes!' I suspect I'll have several moments going through this year of thinking, 'Oh, that's the last time that will happen.'"
With her kids now aged 10 and up, Pippa says she and Torrin are at "the real sweet spot" of ages. Even the somewhat-dreaded slide from tween time to teenage years is going well. "Look, we've had our moments and I'm sure we'll have more, but the general trend is very good."
It's a typically happy household, even if Torrin and Pippa are blown away by how quickly the kids are growing up. Pippa, a statuesque 1.8m, now has a teenage daughter who sits just 3cm below her own height.
"Brodie will be hanging out with her mates and I'll think to myself, 'They could all pass for being a lot older if they wanted to.' It's slightly weird entering that phase of having children that at least look like adults, even if they're not mentally behaving like adults yet!"
The Fair Go presenter has a pretty laidback approach to parenting. Photo / Jae Frew
After last year, it's fair to say that a lot of us are more grateful than ever for our lives in New Zealand – something that has always been a running joke for Pippa and her kids – in a previous interview with The Weekly, she joked that she can't even take her kids past a stretch of water without opening her mouth and her kids jumping in to say, "We know, Mum! We're so lucky!" But this year, she feels it even more strongly, especially having had a summer holiday when so much of the world is trapped indoors.
Thanks to her paternal grandparents, Pippa is part-Samoan, and while that side of the family is healthy and well, it's been a tumultuous time for them, with the island nation completely isolated from its Pacific neighbours since March last year.
"It's strange over there – they're so heavily dependent on tourism, but partly because of the measles epidemic, they just closed down really early," Pippa says of the 2019 outbreak that infected 3 per cent of the population.
The Wetzells have ties to the Sinalei Reef Resort on Savai'i, which has shut down, she hopes just temporarily, because of the effect Covid-19 has had on tourism. "They are a very resilient people," Pippa says of Samoa. "And they've always been extremely good at identifying what's important – and that's your health and your family."
Asked if that's where she gets her focus on wellness and whānau, Pippa looks surprised. "Isn't that everyone's priority?" Well, no, not always. And Pippa's decision to work her television career around her kids is clearly one that she takes very seriously.
"Family has always been really, really important. I'm always very grateful that I have a healthy family. I always have this weird sort of feeling that when little things go wrong, I'll take it. I'll take as many little things as you want to throw at me – I'd hate to have to deal with a big thing."
Laughing, she adds, "There's almost this sense of relief when something bad happens, as if there are some kind of karma scales and a lot of those little things will add up to one big thing. I know it sounds stupid, but it means I do tend to take these little things on the chin rather well."
For someone with such a public role, Wetzell is good at flying under the radar. Photo / Jae Frew
This awareness of how quickly the fates can change is very much heightened by her work on TVNZ 1's Fair Go, which Pippa has been co-hosting since 2013. "It absolutely helps you feel grateful for the things you have in your life," she says of the consumer affairs show.
"Sometimes not only has a bad thing happened to a good person, but also there are times when they've done nothing wrong – they've done everything right – and then this bad thing happens. My heart does break for them."
The behind-the-scenes camaraderie of Fair Go has been a selling point on the show since forever, says Pippa, who presents alongside journalist Hadyn Jones. "You talk to anyone who's worked on the show and they'll talk about how great the team is," she enthuses.
"Sometimes, in any form of media, as soon as things get a bit bigger, it's hard to get that back. But we're really lucky in Fair Go because it really does have that team feeling – everyone's got your back and everyone wants the very best."
This isn't always a given in television, she says. The very nature of the job can mean competition for who gets the story and the scoop. "Have I ever had a competitive work nature?" she ponders. "Yes, but not within a team. I've always wanted us to do well – I've never felt particularly that I needed me to do well. I'm sure there are situations where that kind of competitiveness is encouraged between teammates and works well, but it's just not the environment I would be happy in."
With the knowledge that she's only got one year left of having a primary school-aged child, Pippa has a feeling of space on the horizon. "As sad as I am, I'm also ready for that to happen. I feel like this is the first year in a long time where I've started out feeling like I don't have that much to do," she says thoughtfully. "It sounds strange to say – and, look, there's always plenty to do – but I wonder if I'll get to a point where I need to add something to my life."
She's never one to plan – "I still kind of joke that I don't really know what I'm going to do when I grow up" – but she's excited to see what the year ahead holds for her and her family. "The thing is, as the kids get older, they don't need you physically there, but emotionally it's such an interesting time. It's nice to be there for them. The idea of taking away too much time from them after school or not being there in the morning, that doesn't appeal to me."
Regardless, Pippa is excited for what's next – and she's always grateful. She grins, "Nothing is ever perfect, but I appreciate that I get to live a lovely life with happy, healthy kids, family and friends."
