US reality star brands kiwi experience 'a nightmare'

US reality show star Kate Gosselin has spoken of her "nightmare" trip to New Zealand, after she was mobbed by paparazzi in the King Country town of Otorohanga.

The 36-year-old American mum has her own reality show Kate Plus Eight, in which cameras shadow her and her brood of sextuplets and twins.

An episode featuring their visit here screened on American network TLC last week. Titled "Paparazzi Swarm", entertainment websites labelled it "Kate Gosselin's NZ nightmare".

The episode features a panicked Gosselin interrupting Otorohanga Kiwi House zoologist Paul Stuart-Higgs to announce she needed to escape the foreign photographers descending on the family.

She later confided to the camera: "Here you are across the world and it's the old struggles of home."

Stuart-Higgs said Gosselin's January visit was "like a whirlwind for sleepy Otorohanga".

He said the photographers were French and Americans who got thousands of dollars for every picture of Gosselin printed by a magazine.

Because they paid the $17 entry fee to the park, Stuart-Higgs said there was little he could do.

"I'm not a confrontational guy. But I had to tell them to stop pushing and shoving the crew."

Gosselin was less than grateful for his efforts: "Mr Kiwi Man didn't even understand," she told the programme. "He started his spiel and we had to be, like, 'Wait, stop'. He didn't understand really what was going on."

Stuart-Higgs said the blonde was at loggerheads with him off-screen, too.

"I was explaining the male birds have a band on their right foot and the females on their left. I said the way the staff remember is because 'men are always right'," he said. "I thought it was quite funny, but Kate didn't like it."

The zoologist, who is in charge of 22 adult kiwi and five chicks, said he wasn't required to act for the cameras.

Gosselin's comments come two months after film star Anna Faris appeared on an American talk show and said Kiwi men shouted obscenities at her while she was here filming Yogi Bear.

She later played down the comments, saying Kiwi men were "lovely" and the complaint only gained attention because "it was the one semi-funny story" she told on the show.