"They hired the wrong girl because I wasn’t a formally trained journalist, so I didn’t really fit in the newsroom,” Petra Bagust said. Photo / Supplied
"They hired the wrong girl because I wasn’t a formally trained journalist, so I didn’t really fit in the newsroom,” Petra Bagust said. Photo / Supplied
Petra Bagust has lifted the lid on the end of her 18-year career in television, revealing she had “no idea” that when she departed TVNZ’s Breakfast she was effectively bidding farewell to the industry.
In an interview on Newstalk ZB’s Real Life with John Cowan on Sunday night, Bagust said she had always felt like a “round peg in a square hole” as a presenter on Breakfast and made the call to leave in 2013 for her own sanity.
But the now-media chaplain and host of podcast Grey Areas didn’t realise that decision was, in essence, her quitting television for good.
“I left, and then in the next article I read that I was a ‘former television presenter’,” Bagust told Cowan. “I was like, ‘Hmm, I had no idea I’d resigned from the industry’. I’m a former television presenter now, and that was it – it was no more television for me.”
Bagust was handed the Breakfast gig in 2011 in the wake of Paul Henry’s infamous ‘Sheila Dikshit’ gaffe, and says it prompted TVNZ management at the time to pursue a more “straight-laced, to the point” style of news programme.
She says it quickly became clear this approach meant the Breakfast job “wasn’t the right fit for me”.
“I was a round peg in a square hole… They hired the wrong girl because I wasn’t a formally trained journalist, so I didn’t really fit in the newsroom,” she said.
Petra Bagust and Corin Dann as the hosts of Breakfast. Photo / TVNZ
“I thought it would be easy to get up at 4am and I’d be fine, and I thought that I’d still have time with my kids in the afternoon. I just thought I’d gleefully bounce along. But doing the same thing every day at the same time is probably not so suited to my personality type.
“I didn’t feel I could be myself, to the point where I thought maybe I couldn’t broadcast. I was like, ‘I’m going to get out for my own sanity’.”
After leaving TVNZ, Bagust took a year off looking after her kids, before taking on public speaking, emceeing and brand ambassador roles and studying te reo Māori. She describes it “as an incredible time of personal enrichment.”
In recent years, Bagust has let her hair go grey – a decision that went against her natural TV instincts, but felt like the right move.
Petra Bagust wearing Kowtow for the Tees for a Cure campaign. Photo / Frances Carter.
“There is a relatively established script, as a wahine on television – there’s a certain weight that’s ideal, a certain skin colour that’s ideal, a certain hair colour that’s ideal.
“So the decision to let my hair go grey was a liberation movement. It was me saying I’m still okay and I’m still relevant, even with this colour hair… In essence, it was me emotionally saying, I’ll probably never be on telly again because I’m letting myself go grey.”
It may have been a goodbye TV, but that decision was a springboard to an idea that has seen Bagust return to her broadcasting roots – albeit in a slightly different format.
She is now the host of the award-winning Grey Areas, a podcast about growing old and going grey in Aotearoa. The podcast encourages listeners to embrace the physical, emotional and mental changes that come with ageing, particularly life stages like menopause.
Bagust also lends her experience and skillset to her role as a media chaplain, in which she holds space for those working in media who want to “offload some of the difficulty they might be going through” in their jobs.
“It’s these restructures, these funding cuts, this pressure on them, in so many different areas… It’s not my job to solve their problems, it’s my role to sit with them in their pain and to offer something if it’s requested.”
Real Life is a weekly interview show where John Cowan speaks with prominent guests about their life, upbringing, and the way they see the world. Tune in Sundays from 7:30pm on Newstalk ZB.
