Wendyl Nissen: Fawning over the GC's 'hot guy'

Zane Houia from the GC. Photo / Supplied

The GC distracts Wendyl Nissen during a hunt for warm PJs.

I've never been one to fawn over celebrities. Not for me the groupie mentality or the requirement to rush up to them and gush, "I think you're amazing".

I'm more likely to spot one and walk the other way, such is my abhorrence of them. Now that I am well out of editing women's magazines I have no need to suck up in order to get them to grace my covers.

Until the other day, that is.

I was cruising down High St, as you do, on a wet Saturday, with my husband, trying to find a onesie. For those unfamiliar with the onesie, it is a one-piece pyjama suit similar to a baby's sleep-and-grow, which is guaranteed to keep you warm on chilly winter's nights. It is just as unappetising to look at as men's long johns.

"I have to have one," I told my husband after spotting it in a magazine.

"Surely just some ordinary pyjamas might do?" he said, eyeing the men's pyjamas I like to wear in winter.

"You know how I feel the cold," I replied, marching off in the direction of Peter Alexander.

Which is when a swarthy, handsome, Maori, vaguely familiar man walked towards me.

"Oh my God, it's him!" I squealed, clutching my husband's arm in delight.

"Who?" he said, looking around anxiously.

"That guy. The one from the GC!"

I loved the GC and watched every episode. You can call it trash but I laughed my head off. Their humour and the language they use just really appealed to me.

My husband gave me a weird look which I didn't notice because I was leaping away almost into the arms of the GC guy and saying: "I really love your show!"

The young, hot guy stopped a moment as he took in the truly horrific sight of a nearly 50-year-old Pakeha woman with no makeup in search of a onesie, then smiled indulgently.

"Thanks," he said and kept walking.

"What the hell was that," asked my husband. "You hate celebrities. Are you feeling okay?"

"I don't know what came over me," I tittered.

We eventually found the onesie but the will had gone.

My husband wouldn't let it drop. This was, after all, an extremely disturbing character flaw. It could be just a symptom of something much nastier to come. He intended to cauterise the wound before it spread.

"Do you even know his name?" he asked.

"Um, no I don't, but he's the one who goes out with the hot blonde chick," I said.

"Hot blonde chick," said my shocked husband. "Since when did you use words like 'hot' and 'chick'?"

"Hey neff, leave this auntie alone and stop being so hoha," I replied. He wisely left it alone until he came home last week and found me trawling through the recorded Queen's Jubilee Concert, pausing it at shots of the Royal Family to have a good gawk.

"What are you doing?" he demanded.

"My gosh, Harry is looking hot, isn't he? And look at Princess Margaret's grandson, he's so gorgeous. And there's that Maori guy who married that Royal girl."

"When did they call?" he asked.

"Who?"

"The magazines. You're going back, aren't you? That's the only thing which can explain this inappropriate obsession with fame."

"Don't be ridiculous," I said, continuing to fast forward to the next Royal Family shot.

"Call it turning 50 and be happy with that."