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K’Lee: From Pop Star to Survivor – Abuse, Trauma & Resilience

June 01, 2025 / 02:30:16

This episode features Kaye McNav, a pop singer and radio host, discussing her experiences with domestic violence, motherhood, and her career in the entertainment industry. Key topics include her traumatic past, her journey as a single mother, and her current role in radio.

Kaye shares her harrowing experience of surviving an abusive relationship, where she was choked and threatened in front of her children. She emphasizes the importance of leaving that situation for the sake of her kids and her own well-being.

The conversation also touches on Kaye's early career in music, including her rise to fame as a teen pop star in New Zealand and her experiences touring with artists like Missy Elliott and Busta Rhymes.

As a mother of six, Kaye discusses the challenges of balancing her career with parenting, especially after the premature birth of her youngest child. She reflects on the emotional toll of her experiences and the lessons learned along the way.

Throughout the episode, Kaye emphasizes resilience, self-love, and the importance of pursuing one's dreams, regardless of life's challenges.

TLDR

Kaye McNav shares her journey through domestic violence, motherhood, and her music career, emphasizing resilience and self-love.

Episode

2:30:16

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He put a belt around my neck and choked me till I blacked out. And when I came to, I could see my children under a

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blanket screaming and crying and calling out for me and he was on top of me getting the belt to put around my neck.

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All I heard him say was, "One of us is leaving in a body bag and it won't be

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him." I started kicking, screaming, and just hitting and trying to muster up

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enough energy to get him off me. You know, I get a 44 revolver in the back of my head. He tells us, "Don't make any

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sudden moves or I'll blow your brains out." Kaye the pop singer sort of broke

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through on the scene while you were still at school. If you only there's some good experiences e

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like you toured with Missy Elliot or you open for Missy Elliot. Yeah. Buster Rhymes, Missy Elliot, Shaggy, Nelly

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Fitt. It broke me to hear my son turn around and tell me. It still makes me upset when I hear this.

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[Music] Kiwis love a first like Finn. We're making [Music] [Applause] [Music]

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waves. Generate. Switch online today. Kay Lee, welcome to my podcast. This is weird. This is actually weird. I cuz

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I've known you since I was 14 and this is weird just sitting here across the

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desk after I've watched you in radio and watch you as a singer and as a radio

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announcer and as a friend and now we're sitting here at your podcast. Is it 14? How how did I know you when

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you were 14? I thought it was maybe like 16 15 16. Um, I think I started promoting the single and stuff like that

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and we went round and we did like an introductory and I met you JJ and Jace when I was 14 I think I was almost 15.

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So this must have been like two maybe 2001 2000 and I'm doing the maths here. Damn

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girl. Yeah. And then and then I actually started promoting the single and I came

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to Wellington and we did Jingle Bell. I do remember that. Yeah. You came down with

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your guitarist Justin who's from the band Alamino P. Yes. Um I've got a picture and I've got I've got a picture

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somewhere or more specifically JJ does in her archives of you signing my face with a vivid marker or something. Yes.

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and I ate raw eggs. And then on the flight home, it was there was like a news story that came up and I

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immediately felt ill because it said disclaimer and alert to, you know, PSA. I think it was something along the lines

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of eating raw eggs will definitely give you salmonella. There's salmonella outbreak. And I was like, I just ate

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half a dozen of raw eggs for money for charity. And look at you. You're fine.

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You're fine. Yeah. Yeah. Jeez. Um a little bit cuckoo. Yeah. Yeah. So, we um

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that establishes um our relationship. We we go a long way back. I didn't realize

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you were so young when the music career That's very young, eh? Very, very young.

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And I'm looking forward to unpacking some of that because um yeah, Kaye, the pop singer sort of

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broke through on the scene while you were still at school. Yeah. Yeah. I was at White Taka College, which is baffling

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like it's And this is when charts were were kind of important. They were sort

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of a significant thing. So, you were a big deal. We didn't have social media.

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We didn't have internet then. So it I guess yeah I guess it was a bit baffling. I think I guess for New

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Zealand it was like oh my gosh he's a pop star as a child a a a kid who's

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still a teen. So I think yeah that might have been a bit baffling but no I mean like baffling for like for you like it

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just be bewildering like being at school having the number two song in the country being played on radio being

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played on Juice TV or I just thought it was just fun. And I was like, "Yeah, I'm

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just living the dream." Like I used to watch Mariah Carey and all them at the

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Grammys and MTV awards going, "Man, I could do that. I want to do that. I want

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to do that." Like, all I wanted to do was just sing. That's all I wanted to

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do. Sing, get on stage, and just have fun, perform. That's all I wanted to do.

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That's what I love doing, and I still love doing it today. Do you do you um do

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you do many podcasts? Have you been on many? I couldn't find I couldn't sort of

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find any sort of like deep dive long- form podcast that you've been a guest on. Uh a couple. Yeah, a couple. Yep.

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Yep. I've been on a couple. Do Do you like this? Do you like reflecting on the

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various chapters of your life? It's been a very very rich life and you're still

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not even middle-aged yet. Thanks, Tom. Um, I I think it's not until obviously

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you or the people asking me questions, interviewing me, start asking me about my life and those past things that I've

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done or Kaye the singer or Kaye growing up or Kaye being on TV, those things I I

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think it's then that I go, "Oh, well, I have done a lot in my life." I guess I

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just kind of just pushed to the side and just keep going forward because the past

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is the past. I can't change anything about it. but moving forward like, hey,

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there's still things I want to do. There's still places I want to be, you

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know, and C, there's still life to live. So, I just don't really have the time to

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reflect back on those things. Well, you got six kids. Six kids from the age range of what 18 to 18 to the youngest

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now is almost about 9 months. You haven't had time to think or self-reflect in 18 years. I haven't had

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time to sleep in 18 years. Yeah. Now, um, so we're recording this on a Friday

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and, um, you've been up since very early this morning doing the breakfast show on

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Flavor. Yeah. Yeah. It's my new job. How, um, Yeah. How are you? I on Fridays

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when I was doing breakfast radio, I was like a wreck after work, like eyeballs hanging out. This week in particular has

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been a full-on week because my awesome breakfast show has been sick with flu and

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gastro, and I am the iron gut last man standing. So, I've just been jumping into the coho seat and then jumping into

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the anchor seat, which is always interesting. Um, but yeah, no, it's it's

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been an interesting week. Plus, I'm also being mom in the background. Kids are

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getting ready for for Polyfest. You know, my teenagers are performing, so I really want to see that, be a part of

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that. And so, with Kapahaka, there's a lot of things you need to do. Help with

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the kakahoo, making the clothes and all that. help with getting them to their practices, help with no and just all

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sorts of things, you know, and with their overall wellbeing. Got to make sure they're fed.

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Um, yeah, you're a machine. I I don't know how you do it. So, yeah, breakfast

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radio show, which is um, you know, it's a full You finish at 10:00 in the morning, but it's a full-time job and

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there's a lot that goes into it. It's sort of like the iceberg. Well, you

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finish on air at 10:00, but you know, you and I both know that there's still

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prep for the next day and because social media plays a huge part in how we promote ourselves now. And cuz, you

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know, let's be honest, no one in radio has got money these days. So, you got to

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rely on social media to do digital content. So, we got to create all the time. So, being a radio announcer now,

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even from when I started, I was like, "Oh, wow. This is evolving really fast.

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You're no longer just a mouthpiece. You're no longer just the person who

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creates content and laugh and and just turn on the mic and do it. You have to be that personality. You have to con,

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you know, create content. You have to be that person who is everywhere, anywhere,

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and ready at any time. Yeah. And and from a like a female broadcaster perspective, I suppose

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there's more pressure to um like look a bit better than what maybe you needed to

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do 20 years ago in terms of like putting some makeup on or you know dressing um nicely because it's going to be on

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social media. Oh, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I um look, to be honest, if you're looking

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at a lot of the younger announcers now, of course, like that they they look amazing. They're always ready. Their

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hair's ready. Their makeup's ready. Their facials ready. I mean, they're

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much younger. They don't have the wrinkles like I do. Um, they also don't

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have six kids and they only have, you know, they get more than 4 hours of sleep a day, but and I'm not making

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excuses, but at the same time, I think, you know what, if I was to go out in public and see people and and if I'm

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going to be my authentic self, I just have to show up as myself. And at the moment, this is who I am. This is the

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best that I am at the moment. And you know, there's always days to be better

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the next day or to be better for myself, not for anybody else. Um, but yeah, as long as I feel comfortable and I'm okay

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in my own skin and my body, I mean, it's it's been through a lot, you know, my my

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body, my my mental, my spiritual, my emotional, my physical health. I've put

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myself through a lot of things over the years. So, I'm happy where I am right

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now. And I think that's all that really matters. Oh, you're so cool. Oh. Oh, you

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are. You are. Oh, no. I've always I've always been a fan. And when you say

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something like that, it's um it's really cool. You've just got such a you I think

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you've always had just a really good sense of who you are. Oh, thanks. Yeah.

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I think I think mainly that comes from probably my mom and dad, you know, very humbling making sure that my mom

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especially um you know, she always made sure that we knew who we were um culturally and um as women cuz I'm the

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oldest of um three girls. Uh she just always instilled in us that you know you should never give up on your dreams and

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what you want as a person and just because you become a mother, just because you get married, just because

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you have these things going in your life doesn't mean you ever give up on what

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you want in life and where you want to be and that dream, that vision that you always hold on to. And she's always been

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quite encouraging in that sense. So I think a lot of that I owe to my mother and father just on our surroundings and

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making sure that family is before anything else. Why would your mom say that? Did she was there dreams that she

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had that she didn't pursue or dreams that she had that she did aggressively pursue? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No,

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definitely. Um so I was just checking to see where I was right there. Um so yeah.

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No, no, no. It it is definitely cuz um my mom was the oldest of nine and you know grew up at and and wasn't wealthy

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at all, you know. Um I'm sure she wouldn't mind me sharing that, you know,

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there were times where times were that tough that her and her sisters shared underwear, you know, that her and her

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sisters and and her family, they lived in a tent, you know, like there there was times were tough. And with my cord

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not holding down a a consistent job, there were always things that my mom always aspired to and always dreamed of

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and always wanted. And my mom was super smart. My mom is smart and so clever. And she joined the army to get out of it

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cuz that was the only outlet. That was the only way she was going to get out of and make something of herself. And my

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mom was pretty hearty, you know, from girls, you know, out there, you know. Um, but she also grew up in that era of

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not really knowing her [ __ ] papa, not really knowing who she was. And that was

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something that she really yearned for. Fast forward a few more years where she meets my dad and they end up getting

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married and my mom ends up, you know, falling pregnant and having a family. Obviously, she had to leave the army. So

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then what was she going to do? And that time of having children and just sitting

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around and being a army wife, as they would put it, she was like, I want more than this. I'm not going to sit around

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and wait for my husband to come back from overseas and be the woman who sits at home and just cooks and cleans all

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the time. And there's nothing wrong with that. But my mom wanted more. And I

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suppose that's where I get that drive from. I I want more. So she at a later

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age decided well I'm going to go and I'm going to train to be a teacher goes to

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teachers training college and we were I think we were living in Manoatu in Palmer North at Linton camp and she

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ended up going into teachers training college and some amazing um kayoko there some kua there said hey you're not

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supposed to be in here you're supposed to be over here you're going to be a

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multi bilingual teacher and my mom was like I have no idea about my [ __ ] papapa I have no history

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I don't know how to speak much like I wasn't you know around too much except

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for the little way and stuff that my mom would sing to me as as I was a little baby and I think I was probably about

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six or seven maybe seven at this time and she started teachers training college of course um I didn't actually

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get the chance to go into Kohhunga so I was just picking up the deal that my mom

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and my baby sister would talk about all the time and that my mom would bring home women that she was practicing. Um

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my mom now though is fluent in Sidel Mai. She became a mai um teacher. She um worked at you know full immersion

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kurakopa as well as you know other bilingual units and things and you know phenomenal. My mom just loves and soaks

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up languages. You know you put a language out there and she's like oh I'm

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going to learn and she'll learn to have a conversation with you in that language. She's actually really amazing

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like that. And yeah, that that had kind of was the journey. And I think the fact

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that she's always open to just learning more and absorbing more that's always

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rubbed off of me and my sisters. And so it's just adapting to that environment

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and just going, you know what, this is living. And I I think a lot of that is also from my core, her father, cuz he

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always used to say to me, honk, life is for the living. If you're going to do

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something, honk was my nickname because I'm the whitest in my family. honky. So, um yeah, my um I won't tell

00:13:43

you what my mother's nickname was. Jesus. Um but yeah, so um yeah, he always just said to me, you know, life

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is for the living. You got to get out there, make good stories for your moors, for your children, create memories. And

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that's always stuck in my head. So, I live life like, you know what? I want to

00:14:03

create memories. I want something, you know, to be me, you know, for me to remember out of this. I just don't want

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to just do something just for shits and giggles. I want to h have it be I want to do things with intention. I want to

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have a purpose for it, you know? And if that means I'm helping somebody else, if

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that means I'm sharing something else, if that means that I'm able to go in

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there and be a part to help somebody else, then I'm all for it. So, you know,

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it's always it's that drive of just wanting to be better as a person. I think once you stop learning, that's

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when you know that you shouldn't be where you're at at that time. You need

00:14:38

to shift gear and change direction. That's so inspiring. What about your dad? He he's Scottish. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

00:14:46

So, Scottish dad, moldy mom. Did you grow you It seems like you grew up with a good sense of who you were in terms of

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like moldy culture and Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty much. Um as much as we could. My

00:14:55

my quarter was fun. So he's a part of that generation, that lost generation.

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Um he was uh kind of adopted or orphaned. Okay. So his mother died um when giving birth to him and his father

00:15:07

died uh just after he was conceived. Um back in those days um when his mother died, he was picked up and sent off to

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an orphanage and he lived with various random people. Has great stories to tell about those. And like fostering. Yeah.

00:15:21

Yeah. Yeah. Like just like little foster homes that he ended up in. Um but he was

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a very very sick baby. Princess Deu named him Mumora. Um because he was a really sick baby and I guess just in

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that lost generation when one of his aunties from Watau came and got him, she took him back to Watau, tried to marry

00:15:43

him off to his cousin apparently and um he went oh hell no. and ran off to um but long story short is that he never

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knew and they wouldn't tell him who his mother and father were. So it wasn't

00:15:55

until he was on his deathbed that we actually found out who his mother and father were, their names at least. Um

00:16:01

they're bur buried somewhere on top mountain. We still can't find them, but

00:16:06

we know a little bit of where we are. And we're actually I think I think just as a faro

00:16:14

we're quite confident in one day the truth will come out and one day we will

00:16:19

continue to find the answers but one day we will we will get there you know until

00:16:23

then we know that our quarter was an amazing man and he had an amazing family and you know we know that side of our

00:16:30

our mai side. Yeah that's so awesome. I think yeah I think once you pass if you can have that sort

00:16:38

of impact on future generations I think that's really powerful eh you know knowing language just knowing what and

00:16:46

who Maldi culture is and what that is here in Aladora I think that that kind of gives you a little bit more mana and

00:16:54

a little bit more pride and a little bit more um assertion into who you are. It makes you feel just a little bit more

00:17:02

like you belong because okay, this is what we are. This is who we are and this is our history. And it doesn't have to

00:17:09

be on any particular ew. But just looking at moldy culture in in the overall and what we're trying to achieve

00:17:16

and what we've been fighting for, that's got to give you some mana. That's got to

00:17:20

give you some pride. Just because you don't know who your grandparents were,

00:17:24

where they're buried, where they from, and stuff like that, just because you

00:17:26

don't know that yet doesn't mean that you're any less mildy and that you don't

00:17:30

belong. And I think once we get past that, you know, [ __ ] that shame um and that hurt, then we can start to

00:17:38

live and we can start to be and we can start to embrace and we can start to learn.

00:17:44

So, your four youngest kids, they're um half moldy, half Samoan. Yeah. And your

00:17:48

two eldest, they are they half Mexican? Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. American. So, yeah. How do you blend um these various

00:17:55

cultures in your in your household? Oh, I think um in the beginning it was kind of easy, you know, cuz I had less

00:18:04

children. When I was living in Los Angeles, I had to teach myself how to speak Spanish because or or Mexican

00:18:11

because um I was always getting ripped off every time I went to the markets and I never knew how much change

00:18:17

I was getting back. And I was like, um, and like I would ask for like chicken and they would give me something. I'm

00:18:23

like, that looks like chicken. Is that what I wanted? So, I had to teach myself how to speak Spanish to survive. Yeah.

00:18:31

Yeah, pretty much. And um it it was just even just for asking for directions, you

00:18:36

know, just little things. So, I learned how to speak a bit of Spanish. And it was funny because I would jump in and

00:18:42

out of Mai and Spanish while I was trying to speak to the kids, you know, like I would be like, um,

00:18:49

And I'm like, I don't want them to pass me the door. Oh yeah. So, um, teaching the kids

00:18:57

a little bit about where they are, who they are, and what they're from. Like,

00:19:00

we never hide it. They know who they are. They know who they who their, um, sperm donor is. And Oh, that's Yeah.

00:19:07

Their biological dad, your previous partner. Yeah. And, uh, they they know everything about him and and what what

00:19:15

the deal is. Um, so I just really just leave it up to them. The first couple of years, I think I tried to protect them.

00:19:21

So it was more of, you know, reach out and and try and get him and force him to be a part of their lives. But, you know,

00:19:29

as my dad said to me in that, you know, hour of me in tears just not knowing what to do as a solo mom, you know, why

00:19:37

is he not answering? Why does he not want to be a part of their lives? Why does he not even want to help them? You

00:19:42

know, here I am doing it on my own. It was really hard cuz I was doing breakfast at the time, a solo mom with

00:19:47

two children, you know, sleep again. Why do I do this to myself? But, you know, just seeing the

00:19:56

hurt and the pain on my kids every time the phone would go to an answer machine or every time I'd be like, I can't talk

00:20:01

right now. I'm in the studio. I can't I I'll call you back. And and never called

00:20:05

back. The hurt that they had that would frustrate me. And my dad just said to me

00:20:11

one day and it was just a light bulb moment that he was just like, "Why? Why

00:20:17

are you standing there forcing him to be a part of their life? If he wasn't there

00:20:22

before when he was with you, why are you expecting him to be there now?" And I

00:20:27

was like, "Oh my gosh, why am I breaking my back to bend over backwards to spend

00:20:35

hundreds of dollars ringing this person every single day just to talk to his children and he's not going to answer."

00:20:42

And and that was the heartbreaking thing. And then when my dad said that, I was just like, "You're right. I'm done.

00:20:49

I'm done." M and maybe maybe that's just my personality, but once I make that

00:20:55

decision that I'm done, I'm done. Cool. Move on. Okay, that's it. I'm not doing

00:20:59

that anymore. And life just got so much more happier. Life just got so much more

00:21:04

easier. We had great adventures. And eventually, I went on to meet my partner, my husband now, and he's been a

00:21:13

part of their life longer than their actual father has been. And they consider him their dad. uh and that guy

00:21:21

who just lives in America. Um but he's been there for them through thick and

00:21:26

thin and is still obviously still there and he's been amazing. And their family

00:21:32

has just welcomed us with open arms and it's never really been a thing. We don't

00:21:39

call ourselves a blended family. We don't call him stepdad and step this and

00:21:44

all that kind of stuff. um they they it was my children who decided to call him dad. It I didn't ever force that on him.

00:21:53

Um and I didn't force that on them. It was a decision that my children made. Um

00:21:58

but yeah, there was a time though that I mean I didn't tell them the reasons why

00:22:03

I had left. But there was a time where we a point in my son's life where we actually had to sit down and have that

00:22:10

conversation with a therapist. And I thought I was doing the right thing by not telling them and

00:22:18

not making my son form a picture based on what had happened to me and based, you know, on on him um on the actual

00:22:29

father. But um yeah, cuz it was um and we can we can get into this later and as in as much or as little detail as what

00:22:36

you want, but um yeah, it was an abusive relationship. Yeah. Yeah, it was. It was. And not that it was always like

00:22:42

that. I mean, we were actually really good friends. We were we were actually really good mates. And that was, I

00:22:47

guess, the sad thing about it is that we could still be really good friends, but the fact that he wasn't willing to

00:22:55

work, the fact that we were homeless, living in and out of motel and in a truck. Um, the fact that we were

00:23:01

sleeping on his mother's floor with the rats and roaches. like to turn around

00:23:05

and see cockroaches rolling all over the couch that your child your baby's sleeping on, you know, that that kind of

00:23:11

[ __ ] is just that's not on. And nor should you ever treat anyone like that.

00:23:16

And it was just it was heartbreaking to see like this is the place that I am and

00:23:20

this is where I'm bringing my children up knowing that I had a loving family

00:23:24

who would move mountains in earth for me and my children. and here we are in a place where people are shooting at each

00:23:33

other where there's dead bodies lying in the middle of the parks. Like, why am I

00:23:37

putting myself in this situation? And then I had to look at the whole thing of, you know, I I was done making

00:23:43

excuses for his abuse. I was done making excuses for the fact that he wasn't

00:23:49

willing to step up for us. Um, I had a fake driver's license. I was working illegally. I was doing things that I I

00:23:58

didn't want to do, but I had to in order to make ends meet. You know, the 99 cent

00:24:02

store was my best and favorite and life-saving store to go to cuz I could make a whole meal for a whole week at

00:24:09

the 99 cent store. Like to be resourceful like that, you know, and it I think now that I look back at it, it

00:24:15

it still hurts me that I put myself and my children in that situation. But then at the same

00:24:21

time, I'm proud of myself as well. I mean, yes, I it took me too long to make

00:24:27

the decision to leave and it almost cost me my life, but at the same time, I'm

00:24:34

proud that I did get to walk away and that my kids do have an amazing life and they have an amazing father and we have

00:24:42

a great family and yeah, we we are at a place in and a time in our life and that

00:24:48

my children are very self-aware and yeah, I'm I'm just really grateful that, you know, I I I choose not to

00:24:56

dwell in that moment. I choose not to live in that moment and let that moment define me only because if I did, it

00:25:03

would probably eat me up and that's not fair on my children. And it's not fair

00:25:07

on me. You know, I've still got lots of life to live. Oh, that's heartbreaking cuz you you're

00:25:14

just such a giving person and you want to you want to see the good in people. And I I can see how something like this

00:25:19

would happen. like it would start good and then it would just like gradually incrementally like get worse and worse

00:25:24

and worse and before you know it it's been x amount of years. Well, it's your

00:25:27

it's your typical um battered woman syndrome. It is. And and I never understood what that was. Of course, I

00:25:33

seen it. I watched it. You know, I knew people that had gone through it, but I was like, "Oh, no. That's not me. I'm

00:25:38

surely I'd be strong enough to say something. I'd be strong enough to do

00:25:41

something." But it wasn't until you're in a country with no family, no support

00:25:45

around you or anything like that and you've got responsibilities like looking

00:25:48

after two kids that the the the you say something out of turn and you get a punch to the eye. Um you realize that

00:25:56

he's been married to somebody else the whole entire time and you end up being

00:25:59

thrown down the stairs and a broken nose. um you know, you you get held pretty much at ransom. Like, pick a

00:26:07

child or or you know, you're never going to see this one again. You'll be damned

00:26:12

if you're going to take my children away from me. So, pick a child and and you

00:26:16

take one and I'll take the other. I'm like, "All right, you've got me twisted.

00:26:20

I'm not leaving my children here with you. I will stay here for them and protect them if that's the case." Um,

00:26:26

and then when I finally had the courage to leave, he put a belt around my neck and choked me till I blacked out. And

00:26:33

when I came to, he I could see my children under a blanket screaming and and crying and calling out for me. And

00:26:42

he was on top of me like getting the belt to put around my neck and and all I heard him say was, "One of us

00:26:49

is leaving in a body bag and it won't be him." And I was just something in me,

00:26:56

whether it was God talking to me or something, I just remember that whole this is not what I planned for your

00:27:01

life. This is not where you're meant to be. This is not what you want your daughter to see what love is and see how

00:27:09

a man treats a woman. This is not how you want your son to grow up. And that like this is not your time. This is not

00:27:16

you. This is I've got more for you. This is these are the things that I was hearing. And I started kicking,

00:27:22

screaming, and just hitting and trying to muster up enough energy to get him off me. And it was his little brother

00:27:30

that came through the door from the liquor store just down the road, heard all this cuz he had locked the door and

00:27:36

broke the door down. And then they started scrapping it out. I had packed a bag and I had said to him that I was

00:27:42

leaving to go to a friend's house and that he wasn't welcome there. And that

00:27:46

was it. That's that's how it all started. Um, and yeah, I ended up taking the kids

00:27:53

and leaving and going to a friend's house. And I'm forever in her debt because if it wasn't for her, I wouldn't

00:28:01

have known how to survive um in the situation that I was in, not being able to have a job, not being able to work.

00:28:07

Um, I wouldn't have been able to even feed the children, let alone, you know,

00:28:12

put something together. And it just so happened that when I was staying at her house, I finally got the chance to go on

00:28:20

my Facebook page because I didn't have any phone. I didn't have any way to

00:28:23

connect or contact my family. And I went on my Facebook, remembered my password. And just another divine

00:28:33

intervention, you know, I get a message from Nixon. Hey, what are you up to? When do you think you're coming back to

00:28:40

New Zealand? And I was like, why? What's up? And he's like, "Remember how we

00:28:43

always talked about doing a show together? Would you want to do my f breakfast?" I'm like, "Fuck yeah, let's

00:28:51

do it." I'm like, "Just get me three plane tickets and we'll sort out the

00:28:56

rest when I get back." And if it wasn't for Nixon, Clark, and and Leon Rat for

00:29:01

getting me across and getting me and my kids home, I don't think that I'd be

00:29:06

here to tell that story. Did Did Nixon know what was going on or did he just want you to come back

00:29:11

because he thought, "Oh, Kaye, the former singer, she'll be good." Yeah,

00:29:14

she's done a bit of radio. No one knew what was going on. My parents, I've

00:29:18

heard bits and pieces about this over the years, so I knew it was um a bad place. I had no idea it was it was that

00:29:22

bad. Yeah, that's um Well, I learned a lot. I learned a lot about myself. I learned a lot, you know.

00:29:30

A lot of things happened over there. It wasn't all glitz and glamour in Hollywood like everyone thought, you

00:29:36

know. So, you know, I was kidnapped and had a gunpoint. What the [ __ ] I was going to I was going to park

00:29:46

this and and go go back and do the Kayie story in chronological order, but since

00:29:49

we're on this, we may as well get this crunchy stuff out of the way and then we

00:29:52

can go back to the fun stuff. How about And you said something before about like like bodies in the park. That

00:29:58

was a rare that you may that happened once. No. So, where we were living, um, we were living right next to Watts

00:30:04

towers and, um, the day before Macy Gray was supposed to film her video clip in,

00:30:11

um, Watts Park, uh, there happened to be a shooting that night and there was a dead body in the park and we could see

00:30:19

it from our driveway. You know, normally I would take the kids for a walk around

00:30:22

the Watts Park cuz that's the only place that I was allowed to go. I wasn't

00:30:25

allowed to walk any further, not allowed to take them anywhere else without him being there. Um, and yeah, he was there.

00:30:32

It was the person was there. They talked him out, had them over, cleaned up the park, and then the very next day, Macy

00:30:37

Gay came in to do video. No one was any the wiser. Um, Macy Gay's got this little little

00:30:44

known song, unless you're a big Macy Gray fan, you wouldn't know the song,

00:30:47

but a song called Still, which is um like it's a domestic violence song. And

00:30:52

um yeah, she talks about um the abuse in the relationship and then you know um then he lights up and he's apologetic

00:30:59

and she melts again. It's [ __ ] sad. It's really sad song. And that's exactly

00:31:03

it. That's exactly it. That's exactly it. How long was it good for in the

00:31:07

beginning? Um when we actually cuz I met him on the Corio tour. Um were you seeing Kio for a

00:31:14

while? There's some articles online some stuff online that said you were dating for a while. No no no no no

00:31:20

no. Kio's DJ. Um okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Take a step down. Um no. Yeah. So he was DJing for

00:31:30

Kulio and I had met him. Um we had become really good mates and everything like that and obviously you know the

00:31:35

rest had just followed on. We had lived here in New Zealand for a few years and that was great until it wasn't. And I

00:31:43

guess right then and there I think there the first time that he ever hit me was um at a gig that we had been at

00:31:49

and I kind of thought, oh maybe it was my fault, you know, and I think I should have realized the flags then, but it

00:31:58

only happened that once and didn't happen again for another year or so. And then um he went on tour again I think

00:32:05

with Kio and Poland or something like that. And then we went and and we were going backwards and forwards together to

00:32:11

America and back. And it wasn't until I was supposed to go over and I went I did

00:32:16

go over to do a tour with Adjar and stuff around LA. And that's when we decided yeah I I would I would move

00:32:24

over. I would stay and everything and and of course you know things would work out and we'd find a way to make it work

00:32:30

you know. Um, and it wasn't until I actually moved over, probably about a year into being there, that things just

00:32:37

everything just changed. His whole personality, the demeanor, the whole situation. Um, was it methreated or

00:32:44

anything or No, no, no, no, no. That it, you know, maybe I could have made that excuse if it was, but No, it wasn't. No,

00:32:53

not using anything as an excuse, but No. No. But I mean like you know when I had to tell my son

00:32:59

cuz we had to go to therapy and I thought I was protecting him by not telling him the reasons why we left and

00:33:06

what happened. Um you know I just did the whole you know we didn't love each

00:33:12

other anymore and mommy had to come back to New Zealand and bring you two with me

00:33:17

and you know this is where our life is now. You know this is what we're about

00:33:22

and he still loves you. he still wants to be a part of your life. And that's

00:33:24

what I would always say. Um and and they just never talked to him. They just never heard from him for years and years

00:33:30

and years. And it got to the point where obviously he was trying to search for his own identity as a young, you know,

00:33:35

boy and he was acting out. We had some situations and we had to go to a therapist and we sat there and she just

00:33:43

said to me like, "I know you think you're protecting him, but he actually

00:33:46

needs to know because so many people were telling him stories and so many people were saying things that just

00:33:52

weren't true that he would believe all these things." And well, like putting

00:33:55

him on a on a pedestal or No, they just they just said, "Oh, maybe he did this

00:33:59

to your mom. Maybe he did that to your mom. Maybe maybe you're the way you the

00:34:02

reason why you're like that is because of this." You know, and they were just

00:34:05

telling him things. I don't know why they were because none of it was true. So I ended up just having to tell him

00:34:13

and it broke me to hear my son turn around and tell me. It still makes me upset when I hear

00:34:24

this. That's cuz you're a good mama. Oh, thanks. Try to be. Um, he turned around

00:34:31

to me when I told him why we left and he said, "Mom, because he's my dad, am I going to

00:34:40

be like that? Am I going to hurt people like that? Cuz I don't want to hurt my

00:34:45

mom or my wife or my children like that." And he goes, "Is that in my blood?" You know, for a 9-year-old to

00:34:54

think that, you know, and I that broke me. And I said to him, absolutely not. These are consequences of your

00:35:05

decisions and he hasn't matured enough to take responsibility of those actions. So if you decide that you're

00:35:15

going to go down that road and hurt someone that you love, that's a decision

00:35:20

that you've made and you must suck up the consequences for that. Whether that's going to jail, whether that's

00:35:27

hurting someone to the point where they don't want to be with you anymore, whether you break your relationship or

00:35:32

your family, that's a consequence that you will have to live with for the rest

00:35:36

of your life. It's not anybody's fault. It's not anybody's else's decision but

00:35:41

your own. So in that moment, you have to think, if I go down this road, what is the consequences? If I go down that

00:35:49

road, what are the consequences? He genuinely thought that the reason why he was so angry and the reason why he

00:35:57

was acting out as a 9-year-old boy trying to figure out who he was, where he belonged was because he carried this

00:36:05

gene that he was an abusive person that he inherited from his father, you know. So, you know, that that to me hurt me

00:36:14

more than having to tell him what happened to me or even just the realization of actually

00:36:22

leaving. So, you know, he's an amazing young man, my son, and he couldn't be

00:36:29

further than the opposite of who his father was. And and he's just the most kindest, most beautiful person. And I

00:36:40

I'm just so grateful that, you know, my kids are like that, you know, that they

00:36:45

can see the be the good in people. And he is exactly, you know, that person. Every day is a new day. He never holds

00:36:51

grudges. And he's just such a beautiful person. Beautiful young man. And um yeah, I try to tell him and remind him

00:36:58

that every day that he is that beautiful person. Jeez, I wasn't expecting to be this

00:37:04

emotional half an hour. Half an hour in. Jeez. Is that all? Oh, already half an hour in. Wow. Um but you know that that

00:37:14

is parenting, you know, that that's you know, and then there's the other side of

00:37:19

having a blended family where my um uh mine and my husband's uh older son, he actually turned around to

00:37:28

us a couple of years ago and he said to me and his dad that we were hiding a secret from him and he was really upset

00:37:34

and we're thinking, "Oh, what's the secret that we're hiding?" And he was

00:37:37

like, "Whoa. And he was like, "How come you didn't tell me that my older brother

00:37:42

and sister don't have the same last name, that they're not my real brother and

00:37:48

sister?" I was like, "What do you mean?" And I didn't realize that part of having

00:37:53

a blended family. I didn't realize, oh my gosh, yes, that there is that part of

00:37:59

telling these children that you've had after the fact, you know, that yes, they

00:38:05

are indeed your half brother and sister. And that hurt our older son. That hurt my son. And um I he he's he understands

00:38:16

it now. And he still ask questions every now and then. But I'm thinking, damn,

00:38:21

I've got three more kids. I have to go through and answer. I was like, that's a lot of hard

00:38:26

conversations. Can't you just do it, you know, do it in one group setting? But

00:38:30

then, you know, I have the whole the whole spectrum. I've got teenagers and then I've got the the the te the twins

00:38:37

and then I've got these babies. So, I'm like constantly every day going from one

00:38:42

spectrum to the other, you know. So, I suppose the the babies will just grow up just knowing it is what it is. Well, and

00:38:49

it won't be a thing. Yes. And and and you know what, my um our 10-year-old probably would have just kept on going

00:38:54

like that, but he's so damn clever and he's so inquisitive and he's so nosy

00:38:58

like me. Are you nosy? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I want to I want I want to know why. I want to

00:39:05

know how. I want to know how does that work? What does that do? When can we do it? Why can we do this? What was that? I

00:39:11

was always that inquisitive kid. Always ask questions. And he's exactly like

00:39:14

that. Yeah. So the LA years, how many how many how many years were it? Was it when was it from and two? Uh from I left

00:39:23

two end of 2005, came back 2011, beginning of 2011. Six years. Yeah. So, six years of hell. Yeah,

00:39:33

probably five. Probably five years. Five years. And when I know you're you're

00:39:38

you're a proud proud Maldi woman. Um but when you're you know on phone calls home

00:39:43

or whatever, what are you saying to your mom and dad? Do they think everything's

00:39:46

all good? Could they sense something was up? Did they know something was up? Um, so it wasn't until um we came home

00:39:54

that um we were obviously I moved it moved back in with mom and dad and they helped

00:40:00

me out a lot cuz I was doing breakfast and I had two small children that were two and one that um that were just you

00:40:08

know needed to be looked after. Well, three and two. Um and yeah, they I was play fighting with my dad as I always

00:40:16

did. you know, my dad never had boys, so you know, I was the tomboy wrestling with my dad and everything. Probably why

00:40:23

I, you know, was so good at boxing and that. But, um, yeah, it wasn't until I

00:40:29

was play fighting with my dad that my son just screamed and screamed and started hitting my dad like, "Get off my

00:40:38

mom's. Don't go away from my mom. Don't hurt my mom. Leave my mommy alone." And

00:40:42

he screamed and screamed. And it wasn't just a a whiny kid scream. It was a fearful, really, really big scream. And

00:40:50

my dad stopped, my mom stopped and I was like, "Oh, son, you know, come here,

00:40:55

come here, come here, come here." You know, and I didn't think of anything of

00:40:58

it. And I was like, "Oh, calm him down." And stuff like that. I was like, "Oh,

00:41:02

he's probably just tired." You know, "Come on, son. D calmed him down." And,

00:41:05

you know, came back down. And when I came back down, my mom and dad were sitting at the table and you know that

00:41:10

typical, you know, you're in trouble. They're sitting at the coffee table, at

00:41:14

the dinner table. They've got a cup of tea and there's a chair sitting there.

00:41:18

They're both sitting together and they're like, "Come and sit down. We

00:41:23

need to talk." And I was like, "Uhoh, I'm in trouble." God, you you're a grown ass woman.

00:41:30

You're a mom of your own, but you revert back to being a little little myself.

00:41:35

I'm still [ __ ] myself. And you know, my mom's got that look on her, that real

00:41:39

and my dad's like, "Girl, you got some explaining to do." So, yeah. And I I literally had to

00:41:47

explain to them what really was going on, what happened. And my dad was really disappointed that

00:41:56

I didn't tell him earlier cuz he said he would have been on the first plane over

00:42:00

there and he would have. And my mom was really hurt and she just my mom at the at the beginning couldn't understand how

00:42:07

how could you, you know, but you're such a strong woman. You're just this and and

00:42:13

my my mom has never my dad's never been abusive to my mom. So I' never grown up

00:42:17

in that environment or anything like that. So, you know, for us to be in that environment, you know, it was just

00:42:24

unfathomable. Um but my mom understands that you know these are some of the things that we have put ourselves in and

00:42:33

I put myself in and you know that I was very prideful and I was I guess under the impression of

00:42:43

you make your bed, you lie in it and you get yourself out of it. You know this is

00:42:48

this was your choice. You decided to stay here for this and you're enabling it. So you need to do something about

00:42:55

it. And and to some point there is that ownership on us as women, on us as even as men. Um you know, you need to make

00:43:05

the decision to put yourself first and you need to stop making excuses for that person, you know, and so I knew that I

00:43:15

wasn't actually doing anything good for my children by staying. and in fact I

00:43:21

was making it worse even though I thought by staying I was protecting them. Um so leaving was going to be the

00:43:28

better option leaving and knowing that it was going to be okay with just us two. And and I think that's when I was

00:43:35

like okay I I need to make that decision and and once I finally came to and I I was like right now how do I actually get

00:43:44

myself out of this? I for some reason I always managed to fall on my feet. I always manage to hustle

00:43:51

something. I'm pretty resourceful. So, yeah. Yeah, it's one of those things. But I look back on my life

00:44:00

and I don't hate it. I don't hate those 5 years, you know, and I don't I met

00:44:05

some amazing people. I met some loving people who I'm still great friends with

00:44:09

today. And I've gone through some amazing things that I have great stories to tell. Even to this point where I get

00:44:16

to tell my 17 almost to be 18-year-old daughter, hey, I was out at gunpoint. This is how I got out of

00:44:23

it. You know, so and she's like, "Okay, mom. I know." I'm like, "If you're ever

00:44:30

in that situation, you know, because you just never know. You think you can walk

00:44:34

around and think this is never going to happen to me. Me and a friend are going for a walk. I'm at the point not knowing

00:44:40

that I'm three and a half months pregnant with my oldest daughter and so she's been held up at gunpoint too

00:44:45

arguably technically um you know I get a 44 revolver in the back of my head and I'm walking with my friend so

00:44:54

we both just stop stand still De's Park El Monte and he tells us don't make any sudden

00:45:02

moves or I'll blow your brains out and I can feel the gun in the back of my head

00:45:07

I can feel that is quite large. So, I'm not going to move. I won't even blink. Please believe I was like trying

00:45:15

to take the most smallest breaths. And then I slowly turn around and he's got

00:45:20

it in my forehead this time. Um, and then he puts it down to my chest. And from that moment on, I don't take my

00:45:28

eyes off him. Uh it was something that my dad always said cuz my dad was a military police in the army and he

00:45:34

always said, you know, you always stay calm. Never panic if you're in in any

00:45:38

situation because it's not going to help you. You can't think straight when

00:45:42

you're panicking. Fight or flight or freeze. Which one are you? I now realize

00:45:48

that I am the fighter. And I could have told you that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty much if I was the guy, oh no, not here.

00:45:57

Not here. Um, and he took us down a bank. He um told us that he wanted to do some really hilarious

00:46:06

things, if I could put it lightly. Um, and that he wanted us to undo our shoelaces and tie each other up. Um, of

00:46:14

course, I pretended not to know how to tie a knot. Um, and and you know, make it look like as if I can tie a knot. Uh,

00:46:21

my friend at the time, she had just had a baby and also had an operation for gallstones. So, there was a point when

00:46:28

he took us down this bank in this park that I was like, "I can run really fast.

00:46:34

Let me just pull you. I will pull you. Please believe." I was like, "All you

00:46:38

have to do is just let your legs just run." And she was like, "No, no, no, no,

00:46:42

no. We can't. We can't." Because at the bottom of that bank was another gang um

00:46:46

occupied area. And yeah, that was like she's like, "We don't know if that's his

00:46:52

hood. We don't know if that's his people." And I was like, "Damn, okay."

00:46:56

like I'm going to trust you. I don't know any different. Um but when he said

00:47:01

what he wanted to do to us and and for us to tie each other up that uh she started convulsing and gagging and

00:47:10

things like that. Sorry if you're a bit squeamish. And um she was he was like

00:47:15

what's wrong with you? You know uh and I remember her saying we're sick. I'm

00:47:20

sick. I'm really really sick. And he was like what do you mean? And I'm still

00:47:24

standing there holding shoelaces going, "Yeah, we're sick. We're sick." And I'm

00:47:30

looking around cuz I'm thinking, "It's a park. It's grubby. It's dirty." Like,

00:47:35

"Where's a a can? Where's a bottle? Where's something that I can pick up to

00:47:39

stab him?" I was ready to kill him. I was ready to commit murder in order to

00:47:44

save my life. And I can say that, you know, openly because I was not willing to do the things that he was saying to

00:47:51

do. And I was not willing to be shot. And I was really looking for something to hurt him with. And if that meant

00:47:57

stabbing him in the throat with a Coke can or finding a piece of broken glass and trying to cut him with it, then I

00:48:05

was willing to do that and to make a run for it. But then at the same time, I was

00:48:10

also like, I can't let her stay here. She couldn't run because not only was

00:48:15

there that that gang paid down the down the area down the bottom, but she had also had fresh stitches from her

00:48:21

gallstone operation. So yeah, I'm sick. I'm sick. What are you guys sick with? And all I could

00:48:27

think was chlamyia or HIV and you can get rid of chlamydia. So I was like, we're HIV positive. And he was like,

00:48:34

what do you mean? He was like, "Oh, I I I said, "Oh, we got tattoos and we're

00:48:40

we're we come from a support group and we're each other's support people making

00:48:43

sure that, you know, we check in on each other, take medication together. She's

00:48:48

late for her medication." He was like, "What do you mean?" And she's like, now

00:48:52

at this point, she's on all fours, like gagging, throwing, throing at the mouth,

00:48:57

like like she she's actually in in a panic state. And I'm just spinning the

00:49:02

biggest [ __ ] lies out of my mouth. And I and he's like, "Well, you can do other things." And then I'm

00:49:10

thinking, "Oh, you put that thing near me, I'm going to bite it off."

00:49:13

Um, but at the same time, like I was just really trying to cut through the the high the the the person that I could

00:49:23

the gl the glazed over person who was high obviously on drugs and cut through and try and trying

00:49:31

to I don't know in my head I'm like if I can just get to the person that's human

00:49:37

inside there if I can just talk him down and I'm like come on man Like she's

00:49:42

she's you don't want to be a murderer and a rapist. Like she's really sick.

00:49:47

She needs her medication. Like we got these from getting we got HIV from getting tattoos. I didn't have any

00:49:54

tattoos at that stage by the way. So lucky he didn't ask me where's your

00:49:58

tattoo. Yeah. What did you get? Um but you know I just like come on man like you know just let me go back and

00:50:07

get the medication. I'll come right back. Blah blah blah. you know, and he's

00:50:11

he's at this stage, he's now pacing. He's like trying to think. He the gun's

00:50:16

come down now, and I'm just I'm still standing still. I'm not trying to make

00:50:20

any sudden movements. And he's pacing back and forth, looking at her, looking

00:50:24

at me. And he's like, "Fine, you've got 10 seconds. Run and then come back." And

00:50:29

I was like, "Yeah, okay." And I just looked at her. And she was like, "Just

00:50:33

go." And he's like, I I ran and I my heart like, can you imagine like running with a camera

00:50:43

and the camera's just going all over the place? That's what I felt like when I

00:50:48

was running up that hill and sprinting across the car park. Like I I had a sense of a direction, but I actually

00:50:55

didn't know what I was looking for. I didn't know where what I was looking at.

00:50:59

It was just shaky camera trees and park and pathways and benches and I was like,

00:51:06

"Shit, what do I do? What do I do? Okay, I'm out. I'm out. I'm out. Okay, I need

00:51:09

to get a phone. I need to get some police." I go to three cars in the car park and they lock their doors and they

00:51:15

wind their windows up. You know, you would never get that here in New Zealand. Someone would help

00:51:21

you, but there they don't want to be a part of anything. And it was this old man, this old

00:51:28

Mexican man who didn't speak a lick of English. And I was like, and he was like, "See, see see

00:51:38

like I was like and he's like, "Okay." So he gives me his cell phone and

00:51:44

I This I think this is the first time I've ever realized that I actually did

00:51:48

this, but I called 11191. Clearly, you know, a kid that was raised on the Simpsons. Oh. or or

00:51:56

police, you know, 911. But um yeah, so um it didn't go through the first time

00:52:02

and then he I like I'm shaking. He gives the phone. He's saying and anyway, I get

00:52:06

there. Um at that stage, more people start coming down and a rangers truck comes through. A ranger truck comes

00:52:14

through and I tell him what happened and he turns on his siren and he the guy that was down there who

00:52:24

held us with the gun does a runner, barricades himself in the house. Um it was on Fox News as well. Um the

00:52:31

helicopter, police, dogs, all that track him to this house and he was at his grandma's house barricaded himself in

00:52:37

there for um almost 24 hours. Uh, turns out when we ended up going to court that

00:52:46

the day before he had actually raped and and beaten an actual young girl. And because he had done it, he thought

00:52:57

he could do it again. And she unfortunately went home and had a shower. And so they couldn't get any

00:53:04

evidence. But she had made a police report. We were that corroborative story during that

00:53:13

altercation. Um he had left some some some marks on some of her items. So they had

00:53:21

fingerprints. At one stage when we were down there he my friend needed a bag. She was like I can't breathe. I can't

00:53:27

breathe. And the only thing that um he I could see was a a plastic bag that was buried in the dirt. So it was underneath

00:53:34

the dirt. kind of like the old school fruit bags we used to have. He I said, "Oh, look. There's a

00:53:40

bag." He goes, "Pick it up." Holding the gun at me, I grab it and for some

00:53:47

unbeknown to me reason, I pick it up. But when I pick it up, I somehow I pull it inside out. So where the dirt was,

00:54:00

that is now on the outside. He gets his hand and his whole handprint is now on that bag and he gives it to

00:54:08

her. She then takes the bag and she's turned it inside out again and when she's blown on it, it's now pressed his

00:54:19

handprint somewhere on that. And so they were a able to get a full handprint plus

00:54:24

mine, my fingerprints and her fingerprints on there that match those fingerprints. On top of the fact that um

00:54:31

my description because I never took my eyes off him, I could pinpoint every fre, every little piece that was on his

00:54:38

face down to his neck and what was written on his clothes that they got and fibers that they found, which was my

00:54:45

hair, her the girl from the day before that he had raped her hair and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, ended up having

00:54:52

to go to court and stuff and testify. But um Jesus. Yeah. But but when we think about it and and both me

00:55:00

and my friend at the time, you know, we've talked about it since and stuff and we kind of laugh a little bit cuz

00:55:06

gee, we were such actresses. Sha Street, where you at? Why didn't you um instead of coming up with that

00:55:15

elaborate elaborate story, did you not think to go please like come on, I'm pregnant. I didn't know I was pregnant.

00:55:20

Oh, you didn't know. No, no, but I did say that she was a mom and I did say that she had had a baby. There was We

00:55:26

had There was lots of things that I tried to do and stall and he was getting angry, so I knew not to piss him off

00:55:31

anymore. You I mean, you didn't have time to work out the plot. Yeah. Yeah. I

00:55:35

was improvising with what I had. Come on, Dom. Um but you know, I'd watch enough CSI.

00:55:42

How was the whole um Yeah. How was the whole the whole court and testifying process? The whole jury cracked up

00:55:49

laughing when I told them because the obviously his lawyers were trying to say I was lying that I didn't actually see

00:55:55

this person that I how could I do that? Um cuz that when I told them how they were like well how did you get away? How

00:56:01

come you're the only person that got to get away? And when I told them I told

00:56:05

them that we had HIV cuz you know if I I could only think of two things, chlamyia

00:56:08

and HIV and chlamydia you can get rid of. The whole jury just cracked up laughing. The whole jury just cracked up

00:56:15

laughing and they were like, "Well, if you lied about that, how do you know

00:56:18

we're not you're not lying about seeing this person?" And I said, "Oh, because

00:56:21

he has a mole right next to his nose on the right hand side of his face because he has a scar next to his eye on his

00:56:28

left hand eye because he has a line through his left eyebrow, you know, and and they were

00:56:34

like, "Oh, okay." You know, because he had pro club written on his toggles of

00:56:38

his his jumper. Wow. the he he had a a cut under his fingernail. You know, I couldn't see any

00:56:49

bullets in the actual barrel or the revolver, but I always knew that there might be one in the chamber, and I

00:56:57

didn't know. You just never know, and I didn't want to take the chance. Didn't

00:57:01

want to take the chance at all. Um, you tell your parents in New Zealand about stuff like this, right? Oh my

00:57:08

gosh. My mom just still to this day, she's just like, "I just can't believe

00:57:12

it." She's like, "I just can't believe that you would put yourself in that

00:57:15

situation. I just can't believe that this stuff happens to you." You didn't

00:57:18

put yourself in any situation, though. Like, oh, but then she's just like, "And

00:57:21

look at you now." I'm like, "Well, mom, you know, God only gives us stuff that

00:57:27

will make us stronger." And obviously I needed to be stronger to battle through

00:57:32

you know nine weeks sitting in hospital with a baby who wasn't doing great or

00:57:36

you know you know like to put me in a place where I was going to have to you know be a lot stronger you know maybe

00:57:43

maybe this is maybe it was for a situation where I can educate some people maybe this has happened there's

00:57:50

got to be a reason you know and but are you are you thinking this way at the time when you're going through this

00:57:56

adversity or is it Oh no. I'm like, what's the chances? And even the police goes, this is a one ina-

00:58:03

million chance that this could ever happen to just perfect strangers because nine times out of 10, the person who is

00:58:10

attacking you, the person who's hurting you is known to the victim, right? Yeah.

00:58:15

Like your DV situation. Yeah. Um, and what about the drive by shooting? There was a drive by shooting

00:58:22

incident as well, eh? Oh, so we had just moved out of the house in Long Beach and

00:58:27

the people that we were staying with obviously um had some beef with the local gang and they ended up shooting up

00:58:32

the place which was a common occurrence in Long Beach. You know what? Nothing ever happened to

00:58:41

me in Compton. Nothing ever happened. You know they talk about Compton NWA. Nothing ever happened to me in Compton.

00:58:48

And I met some really amazing people in Watts. Mhm. But I also saw some really out the gate [ __ ] and watts. But you

00:58:55

know this is but that is everyday life over there. That is a common occurrence over there and it's starting to be that

00:59:03

here in New Zealand. You know the fact that I would hate for us to get to the point where we start

00:59:11

locking our doors and winding up our windows and not helping people who need help.

00:59:17

That's when we really need to go what is wrong with us? Yeah. You know, and that's the sad part when we're not

00:59:24

opening our eyes, opening our doors, and and and lifting a hand out to people who

00:59:31

are in trouble, who need help, that's when we really need to start looking at ourselves as a as

00:59:38

humans. Yeah. When you stop assuming that people are good. Yeah. Yeah. It's sad. And I don't want my kids to grow up

00:59:45

like that. But then I also don't want my kids to grow up being naive as well that

00:59:49

this is what this world is coming to. And now that's so hard raising kids in

00:59:53

this day and age with social media cuz I never had social media. Gosh, if I had social media when I was a teenager, I

01:00:01

was a naughty teenager right up until Broken Wings came out and I was like, "Oh my gosh." Well, yeah. In what way?

01:00:08

Oh, I got caught in a stolen car with my very first boyfriend. We got rammed by the police in Oakland City. I can say

01:00:14

these things now. Gosh, can you imagine if I said it when I was at Broken Wings,

01:00:19

Can You Feel Me? OnePlus One came out. The record company, Adam Halt would have had a heart attack. Adam, the boss from

01:00:26

um Sony Records. Universal Records. Universal. Oh gosh. I would have been that would have been like, "Kay, what

01:00:31

are you doing?" Yeah. All right. Well, since you brought it up, Yeah. we we'll

01:00:34

poke around the um the teen pop princess stuff for a second cuz this is a fun part of your story. That's um that's um

01:00:41

thanks for sharing all that stuff. It's pretty bleak, eh? It's a bleak. It's a

01:00:46

bleak chapter. How how much Okay, talking about it. Yeah. How much No, I mean it's a it's a lot to go through.

01:00:51

It's a lot of [ __ ] baggage. How much How much of it like to what extent do

01:00:54

your kids know? I've read bits and pieces, but when it's in like a I don't

01:00:58

know, like a woman's day story, it's just like a little paragraph or are my

01:01:01

older kids. Yeah. They they know a bit, you know. Should the younger ones ask, then I'm happy to tell them the story

01:01:07

and stuff like that. when they get to a point where they can actually understand

01:01:10

for sure. Like I'm not going to tell my six and 10year-old, you know, about it

01:01:14

and they they won't understand, you know, they just see movies and they'll

01:01:17

just think, "Oh my gosh." But my older ones, they understand. My soon to be

01:01:21

18-year-old daughters just like, "Oh, okay. Here we go." And I'm like, "Don't

01:01:25

just say, "Here we go. You actually need to open your eyes, open your ears, pay

01:01:31

attention. Don't think that this is all like, you know, sprinkles and bloody

01:01:35

cream on top of ice cream and stuff. Like there's actually sick ass people out there, as my dad would say, sick

01:01:41

puppies. But yeah, you know, and I and I guess, you know, my daughter is me. She's my little mini me. We were born on

01:01:50

the same day around the same time. She is me. And so I can just see her just being so hard-headed that she's going to

01:01:58

be that girl who has to learn the hard way. by falling on her face. And unfortunately, that is probably my

01:02:05

demise, my car character. Blessing and a curse. Blessing a curse. So, yeah. So, your your daughter, she's

01:02:13

the eldest. Yeah. She's how old? She's 17, almost 18. See, by the time you were

01:02:18

her age, you like you you you were no longer like My album was coming out by then.

01:02:26

Yeah. you. I mean, it's it must be baffling for you to see her as a mini me and think, you know, by the time I was

01:02:32

your age, I'd done this. You know what's baffling? My 10-year-old asking me what

01:02:35

those shiny things on the wall are. What are those, Mom? And my my 16 My 16-year-old son's like, "Those are mom's

01:02:43

albums. Those are mom's singles. Those are her CDs. Mom, what is a CD?" I'm

01:02:49

like, "Shit. Oh my gosh." So then Sharon Sharon Casey gives me the cassette. I

01:02:55

bring that home and I show the kids. They're like, "What is this? And where do you

01:03:00

put it?" I'm like, "You know what? Don't worry about it, kids. I'm just Mom. I'm

01:03:07

just Mom." That's so cool. So, how how did that come? So, yeah. So, your songs

01:03:11

were um the first one was a cover of the Mr. Mister song, Broken Wings. Um then it was uh there there was some others.

01:03:18

One Plus One Plus One, It Ain't Two. Yeah. Can you remember the lyrics to that song? What are some of the

01:03:29

lessons? So do the math while you then um can you feel me with um the great brother D. Can you feel me

01:03:45

baby? Yeah. You know Haley Halt was the one who drove the jeep in that one. Eh oh actually the jeep on the beach. She

01:03:51

was the only one with a driver's license. Full driver's license. I don't

01:03:53

know. How did she get into that? How did she end up in the video? We Oh, I think

01:03:57

she was with the person who was casting some of the other people to the people to be in the video. Um, and yeah, she

01:04:06

was the only one with a driver's license, a full driver's license, and we

01:04:09

actually got the car stuck in the mud in the in the sand at Bethl's. It was so

01:04:14

hilarious. I crack up laughing now. Oh, and then there was a there was a ballad,

01:04:17

Lifetime Left to Wait. A Lifetime Left to Wait. Yeah, I know. your back catalog. I got you. Um, these were big

01:04:23

songs. These were massive songs. So, yeah, they were at the at the time a massive. Yeah, massive songs like radio

01:04:30

hits, chart hits on dead and Lady Mama later. They probably would have went number one. Uh, Broken Wings and Can You

01:04:35

Feel Me? Yeah. This is This is when the charts meant something. And this is like

01:04:41

pre-downloading. I don't know. Maybe there was was there Lime Wire or Yeah, I

01:04:44

think maybe there was. Yeah. But um you basically to buy them like as a like a cassle or we actually had signings in CD

01:04:52

stores, guys. Do you did you ever host any of those? I think so. Yeah, like at a Sounds mega

01:04:58

store or something. So I was working at West City at JJ's while Broken Wings

01:05:04

came out and all that kind of stuff. I still had to have a part-time job as does most New Zealand artists still to

01:05:08

this day. Still have to have a part-time job. It's not a million-dollar deal, you

01:05:13

know, and it urban music is really, really hard to sell in New Zealand. So, anyway, I was working at JJ's selling

01:05:18

jeans, as the Herald put it. And um hey guys, got to go on my lunch break for the next hour and a half cuz I've got to

01:05:25

go next door to ECM and do a signing. So, go across, do my signing, and then come back to work.

01:05:33

Yeah. How did it all come about? Like, how did how did you get like discovered or spotted or signed? Gosh. You want the

01:05:40

short or the long? Oh, well, we can go long. So, um I Well, the long story is I was at Waka College. Had just um

01:05:53

started there from Oakland girls. I was in Kahangi there. Obviously, really hard

01:05:57

to go from Fenuai into K Road every day on the buses and stuff, of course. Um might have been playing up a bit, I

01:06:05

think, as a 13-year-old there. I can't remember. Um, really? In what way? Smoking cigies? No, I never smoked

01:06:13

cigarettes. I was just like just not just not doing my school work, I guess, or just just playing up in in terms of I

01:06:20

think just not applying yourself. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And and I guess kind of just

01:06:25

trying to figure out who I was, where I fit in and things like that. And, you know, I think my parents more worried

01:06:29

about K Road than anything. But um you know come having to catch a bus at 6:00 in the morning to go

01:06:36

to school and not getting home until 7:30 at night because I'd have netball training and stuff like that you know

01:06:42

and my parents were working in West Oakland so it's not like it was easy to get out to the city. So anyway ended up

01:06:50

going to Waka College. My other sister started as well. Um, and I was just having a laugh with a friend and she

01:06:58

decided, she was like, "Hey, want to go and watch all the auditions for the

01:07:02

school show? Let's go have a laugh." I was like, "Cool. Okay, sure. Why not?"

01:07:07

Didn't have anything else other than eating my lunch at school. Went in there, sat there, ate my lunch, had a

01:07:12

laugh, and Mr. Nightingale, the um music teacher there, ended up saying, "Okay,

01:07:18

you're up next." and I kind of choked on my sandwich and was like, "Um, sorry,

01:07:23

sir. I I actually don't know the song. I'm just came to have a laugh." And he

01:07:28

was like, "That's okay. I'll play. You just tell me what song you want to

01:07:32

sing." And I went, "Um, okay." I was like, "Do I have to look at everyone?" I

01:07:39

was so shy. The only other performance that I had ever done was with Kapahaka and you're standing a rose with people

01:07:46

and you're doing actions and stuff. So, you know, it I wasn't ever standing on a

01:07:50

stage by myself. I'd never stood on a stage by myself. So, I was really shy.

01:07:54

And he's like, "You can turn around and face me. That's okay." And so, I stood

01:07:58

there. And I did um Always Be My Baby by Mariah Carey. Yeah. And um he was like, "That's great. Cool. Go

01:08:09

sit down." And I was like, "Gosh, I'm like that really humbled me. Really

01:08:14

humbled me. I've never gone to an audition to laugh at people ever again. Um but um it got whittleled down I think

01:08:22

from like 300 people or something like that to um the last top 10. And then I got the lead role in the school show and

01:08:29

that really opened my eyes. And it was probably the first time that I was like, "Oh, I I must have something then." I

01:08:38

mean, my parents had always got me. my sisters up to sing. You know, uncle's

01:08:43

having a birthday party. Mom and dad are, you know, at the mess at Sergeant's

01:08:47

mess. Come and sing for your aunties. Come and sing for your aunties. You know, all that kind of stuff. So, we

01:08:50

always got up and had a sing song. Mom would get on the gat. My mom was a singer. You know, she loves singing. Her

01:08:55

and her sisters sound beautiful together. So, you know, it was just that was the only way we sung, but to get up

01:09:02

on my own, that was a bit, you know, nerve-wracking. did that and then gave me a little bit more confidence and he

01:09:09

was like, "Look, I think you should do a duet for this talent quest. I think you

01:09:13

should do a a solo for the talent quest." I'm like, "Okay, okay." So, he

01:09:17

taught me a lot about stage presence and and how to hold myself on a stage. And then putting that together with actually

01:09:24

listening and harmonizing with what I knew with Kapahaka, I kind of just developed this

01:09:29

formula for myself of like, okay, this is what I'm going to do on stage. And

01:09:33

then watching the MTV shows, I'm like, this is actually where I want to be. This is my vision. This is my

01:09:40

dream. While I'm playing net and rep and representative net ball and rugby and

01:09:46

things like that, um I end up uh looking in the what do they call it back then? The western leader. Oh, the local paper.

01:09:55

Local paper. Yeah. And in the back was a little ad and it said, "Singers wanted audition. Please contact

01:10:04

this number." So I contacted the number and I went down. I got on the bus myself, went caught the bus into the

01:10:17

city into High Street. And So you're 15, 14. I'm 14. Mhm. And I went up to this office. God, now I I

01:10:29

think about it. I'm saying it out loud. It sounds really creepy. Like I would never let my

01:10:34

daughter do this. Gosh, what was my parents thinking? Well, my parents actually didn't know.

01:10:41

Um, I went to an audition and I sung Always Be My Baby, Mariah Carey. And I think I had a I think I had a big

01:10:50

black eye and a scratched down my face from playing netball too. I think I was still in my net gear. And when I think

01:10:57

about it and um I got a call back. I got a call back and sitting there was um Keith and Maddie J.

01:11:10

Keith. I can't remember his last name. I've had a mind blank. But Keith Yeah.

01:11:15

Keith. And Keith was the actual guy who wanted to put a group together and he enlisted the help of Maddy Jay.

01:11:22

So got the call back and I had to tell my mom, "Hey mom, I went to audition for

01:11:28

this group and they want me to come in for a second audition, but I have to bring you." And she was like, "You did

01:11:36

what?" And my mom actually said to me, "Do you think you're good? Do you think

01:11:41

you're good enough?" And I was like, "Yeah, but if they don't like me, then that's all good, too."

01:11:48

Like, what's the worst that can happen? You know, they say no. Oh, well, that's

01:11:53

okay. They could say no. Just go and do something else. And my grandmother always used to say, you know, how are

01:12:00

you going to say no to something if you don't give it a try, you know? So, I

01:12:04

always looked at it like that. Well, how am I going to know if I don't give it a

01:12:07

try? Just what's the worst going to happen? They say no. Sweet. Just move on

01:12:10

to the next. So, I went down with my mom and my mom is just like, "I don't know

01:12:16

what my crazy daughter's done here. Where are we going? Where are you taking

01:12:19

me to?" Like, you know, and you know, the old buildings in High Street like

01:12:23

look really creepy. Like, he has these long corridors, these little doors, like Yeah. Anyway, 1920s, 1930s sort of

01:12:31

office buildings, really dark, not well lit. Like, how is this 14-year-old daughter like walking through these

01:12:37

things like, "Yeah, come on, mom. Let's go." Anyway, I get there and Maddie J's

01:12:41

like, "Look, look, we really think that you could be a part of this group."

01:12:44

Blah, blah, blah. We've got these songs. We want her to come and record this song

01:12:47

and be a part of this group. So, cool. I'm a part of the group. We start recording, do a photo shoot, and we

01:12:54

record uh Broken Wings, Lose My Call, and I think we did a rough of Hunger if I remember rightly. Was it going to be

01:13:03

like a New Zealand version of sort of like TLC or D Child? No. See, it was myself, Keith, um, this amazing Korean

01:13:10

man, um, Keith. And, oh my gosh, I've just had a mind blank. He was Barbados and I think part

01:13:23

Kiwi Jam Jamal J. I mean, I can't I'm so sorry. Baby brain. Yeah. Um, it's it was

01:13:33

well over 20 something years ago. Um, but he was an amazing singer and I really thought, "Oh my gosh, like he

01:13:40

could really be somebody." Um, but yeah, they we did the demo and Matty J shopped

01:13:47

it to the record companies and apparently they saw the pictures, they heard it and they said,

01:13:56

"Look, we like it. We love the songs, but we just want the girl." And that's

01:14:04

how it all kind of started. Oh, because you had like the X factor or the star power or whatever you want to call it, I

01:14:08

guess. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I it was that torn decision like it kind of felt like Pink being Alicia Moore out

01:14:14

of her group, you know, that whole do you ditch the crew that you started this with and you're really on this cool

01:14:20

journey with or do you jump straight into being yourself? And of course, you know, there were people saying, "Oh, you

01:14:26

know, you got more success making it as a group first than you do as a solo artist, you know, or you could be a solo

01:14:31

artist, but you could flop. So, you know, you're no one's going to be there

01:14:34

for you." And and you know, so it was all of that kind of stuff. And then, you

01:14:38

know, went into the recording studio, we started recording. Maddie was writing a

01:14:42

lot of the songs and producing so many of the songs. He he already had a vision of where it was going to go. And it was

01:14:48

great. you know, he's such an amazing artist, such an amazing um writer. I I I

01:14:54

still feel like he didn't get his full, you know, shine, his flowers here in New

01:15:00

Zealand because the man to this day is still writing, still producing, and still can sing his ass off. Like, it's

01:15:06

just it's really, you know, it's it's really sad cuz we do have so many

01:15:10

talented people here in New Zealand. And then, yeah, we did the album, we did the

01:15:14

singles, and we put them out. So, yeah. The rest is just history. Um, yeah. Can you remember the first

01:15:25

time you heard one of your songs on like radio or juice TV? Oh, it was on the radio. I was walking home. It was after

01:15:31

school and my my auntie, my next door neighbor, my auntie Sue, bless her, was coming to pick up one of her her

01:15:38

daughters at the local Christian school across the road. I did not go to that school. And um and uh I'm walking and

01:15:45

she's beeping the horn. Beeping the horn and it was um my single on the radio

01:15:52

being played. I think it was on ZM. Broken Wings. Broken Wings. And she's like, "You're on the radio. You're on

01:15:58

the radio." And I was like, "Watch cuz you're on the radio." And she's like

01:16:01

beeping beeping beeping. And of course we all crowded around her little rav and we're like listening to the song. And

01:16:07

she's like, "Oh, Carl, see this is you. You're on the radio. You're cool." I

01:16:11

think it was a bit surreal. And I was just like, "Oh, okay, cool." Like I was

01:16:16

going, "Oh, I wonder what happens next." I was like, "Okay." Yeah. What

01:16:21

was it like being a being a school kid at that time? Well, my mom was adamant that we had to

01:16:26

have an education. Um, my dad was just like, you just keep your nose above water. So, you know, your head above

01:16:34

water, keep your nose out of trouble. Um, but I kind of was still allowed to be a kid, but then switch into these

01:16:45

moments where I had to be Kaye. So, they didn't think that Carlina, which is my real name, was sounded poppy

01:16:54

enough. It sounded too prim and proper, too, you know, country bumpkin type thing. Too honk. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

01:17:00

Maybe I should have been honk. Um, it just sounded too too nice. They said, "Two girl next door, you know, just too

01:17:06

nice." And I was like, "Oh, okay." And they were like, "What if we just take

01:17:09

the K and the L and the E E out of it." Um, and that's where Kaye came from. Oh,

01:17:15

that's interesting. So, it's not like a family nickname. No. Carl's most most of

01:17:19

my family K or Carl's. Yeah. So, it's not a nickname. Everything's just an

01:17:22

abbreviation of the letters out of out of Kina. Little acronym type thing. Yeah. Who knew? Yeah. So, it's nothing

01:17:29

special. Kegley, it's my alter ego. Amazing. But were you were you a big deal at school? No, I didn't think I

01:17:37

was. But then again, like probably would have got into a few punch-up fights if I

01:17:41

thought that my head was too big for my boots. Like that was kind of drag you back down. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And and I

01:17:48

think I I learned eventually that it was okay to prop myself up and it was okay to give myself confidence. It was okay

01:17:56

to go, damn, K, like you're actually doing this. because I was constantly checking myself going, "Was that good

01:18:03

enough? Did I sound okay? Do I look okay? Do I look fat? Do I look skinny? Do I look this? Do I do that? H how was

01:18:10

my hand? Do I do this?" Because I was constantly being told, "You need to be

01:18:14

like this. You need to be like Britney. You need to be like Nelly Feta. You need

01:18:17

to be like Jessica Simpson, you know, Mandy Moore. You need to be like them. You need to always have your makeup

01:18:22

done. Your hair always has to be done. You should always be dressed this way. You should always do that. and you are

01:18:28

this pop star. Every girl is going to want to be you. Every guy is going to want to want you. You know, you should

01:18:34

be this person. And I was like, man, that's a lot of people to be. That is a

01:18:38

lot of people to be. But I didn't know any different. I didn't know any better.

01:18:43

And as a as a respectful young Maldi New Zealander, like any other Pacific Island MAI

01:18:53

person, you just respect what your elders tell you. M you know who who was I to know any better? I've never been in

01:18:59

this industry and my parents didn't know anything either. So they were just following what everyone else was telling

01:19:04

them. How were they to know? So eventually, you know, this is the path that I'm going down. I am wearing these

01:19:12

tops and these clothes and I'm thinking, "Oh, I'm I'm showing my belly button."

01:19:16

like that's a lot, you know, from a conservative conservative father, you know, and then here's people sending me

01:19:23

mail and, you know, sending me pictures eventually when I did start getting social media going, "I know where you

01:19:30

live. I saw you running down the street. I know this, I know that, you know, and

01:19:35

they would stand outside my house, my parents house. They would follow my sister's home from school, you know, and

01:19:41

you think, wow, there were creeps back then without phones and out Yeah. Yes, they were. And it was a lot scarier

01:19:47

because they were actually there. They were parked outside. They were following you home from school. So, I think

01:19:56

eventually I just just started throwing myself more into the music because I actually liked the whole journey that I

01:20:05

was on. I didn't like that side of it, but I liked the journey that I was on

01:20:08

and I liked the performances. I loved going to doing these promotional stuff, filming videos, getting out and

01:20:14

performing. I loved touring and I loved being able to develop more and I loved seeing something come from nothing into

01:20:22

something amazing. You know, I loved being able in that creative process. And I think that's where I really found my

01:20:28

flow. So, um I remember 16 coming off a three-month tour. Um what was it called? Summer

01:20:37

Hummer. Summer Hummer sponsored by Boost Mobile or something. Oh, something like

01:20:42

that. It was Summer Hummer and I was myself, Zed, uh, a few other people and I went away on this massive tour and I

01:20:50

had spent more than 30 days away from school and I think I had spent actually near on 50 days away from school. I got

01:20:57

called into the principal's office and they said, "Look, you're an amazing

01:21:01

student." I was like, "Cool. Was there a problem with the work?" Cuz I did the

01:21:04

work. And they're like, "No, there's no problem with the work. Thank you so much

01:21:08

for doing it. But look, rules say that you have to be at school and you can't

01:21:13

miss more than 30 days a year. You know, if you, you know, for just anything, you

01:21:19

don't have a medical certificate, you're going to have to come back and reset six

01:21:24

form. In my head, I'm like, "Fuck that. I am not coming back to school." I

01:21:30

was like, "Mate." So, I walk out of there and I was like, "Well, what's my

01:21:33

other option?" They're like, "You know, you'll be fine. you can come back, reset

01:21:36

six form, and then get your bursery, go into seven form. I'm like, this is ridiculous. Like, why? I've done the

01:21:45

work. Turns out I go outside, I ring my dad, and I'm like, "Dad, this is what

01:21:49

they're saying." And he's like, "Well, what do you think? What do you want to

01:21:53

do?" I'm like, "I got a job." I was like, "I'll be fine." I was only making

01:21:59

like $350 a week back then, which is Damn. Even back then, that was no good. I was like, damn. Like, okay, I've got

01:22:08

I've got it. I I'll be fine. You know, and he was like, well, you know what?

01:22:13

You're already on your path. You're already on your on your journey. You've

01:22:16

got something to work towards. So, throw yourself into that. And I'm like, cool.

01:22:20

Sign myself out. And that was it. Just threw myself into music, threw myself into more performance, into thing. I

01:22:28

still didn't have the knowledge that I wish I had now back then of how to go

01:22:34

and navigate the whole being dropped from a label, you know, not being able to navigate through how to develop even

01:22:42

further. And I think at that time I was also being put into a box of you're plastic fantastic. You can't sing. You

01:22:50

can't do these things. You can't do this. You're nothing. You know, imagine

01:22:55

saying that now to a 15year-old. You know, we don't tell kids, "You're plastic fantastic. You

01:23:01

can't do jack [ __ ] You're made up. You're produced in a studio. Don't eat that pie. You'll get

01:23:08

fat. Do you know that has a block of butter in it? Have you done your your gym workout

01:23:13

today? You need to be showing more stomach. You need to be showing more SC. Where is your makeup? Why isn't your

01:23:20

hair straightened? I'm I'm a young little moldy girl with curly ass hair,

01:23:25

you know. Yeah, it must be especially like alarming for you now with, you know, your daughter. Um, you know, Oh,

01:23:31

yeah. like thinking, what the [ __ ] Um, do you think you like you were more mature than what your daughter was at

01:23:37

the same age? Oh, that's a really good question. Never really thought about that. M

01:23:45

[Music] um I think in terms of life experience, I think I was a lot more mature than her

01:23:53

cuz in order for me to go out and and really make sure that I was honing my skills and practicing, I was literally

01:24:01

playing at bars when I was 15, 14, you know, I was playing with, you know, cover bands inside bars. Can you imagine

01:24:11

going to the Rosen Crown, which isn't there anymore, and it's full of, you

01:24:14

know, Navy sailors and stuff like that, and I'm standing there, I walk up to the

01:24:18

bar to go get a glass of water, and my PE teacher is standing there going, "Hey, can I buy you a drink?" And I turn

01:24:24

around, I'm like, "Hi, sir." And he's like, "Oh my gosh, Carlina, what are you

01:24:28

doing here? You're not supposed to be in here." I'm like, "Oh, I'm with the

01:24:30

band." He was like, "We have never seen each other." My god. So, you know, like I I would my

01:24:39

my parents were I I love my parents, you know, when I think about that now, I would totally I would

01:24:47

handcuff my daughter to the house, you know, if I knew that she was out there doing that. But my parents had so much

01:24:53

faith and they just were like, "This is what she's doing. This is her path." And

01:24:58

I was a pretty self-determined, independent child. You know, I'd get myself to my net games. I'd get a job so

01:25:04

I could buy myself my shoes and and pay for my fees and things like that. You know, I would get myself my mom would

01:25:10

ring me up and be like, "Where are you?" I was like, "It's written on the fridge.

01:25:13

I'm in Hamilton. I'm at a net tournament." What do you mean? I'm

01:25:17

playing for the New Zealand Maldis, you know? So, it was one of those things where I was like, I just went out and

01:25:22

just did everything that I could because I wanted to try so many different things. I wanted to be and do so many

01:25:29

things because I just wanted to. Also, it was a long time ago, like early 2000s. It was less sort of hands-on

01:25:36

parenting, I think, than what it is now. Now, your parents be like, "You're doing

01:25:39

what? Where are you going? Who who's there? Who's there? I don't know about

01:25:42

this. This doesn't sound good. I'll come along with you." Yeah. But back then,

01:25:46

um, yeah, there's some good experiences. E, like you toured with Missy Elliot or you

01:25:51

opened for Missy Elliot? Yeah. Buster Rhymes, Missy Elliot, Shaggy, Nelly Fittado. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Missy

01:25:58

Elliott. I didn't. Missy Elliott. I didn't. Um, we weren't even allowed to

01:26:01

be backstage. They She made She makes people clear the back of the stage. She doesn't want anyone there. She'll stay

01:26:09

in her green room. Uh, even her dancers aren't aren't even allowed to be in that

01:26:14

area until it's actual time. Yeah, they clear. Everyone had to be out of there.

01:26:20

Um, Buster Rice was cool. He was really amazing. He's amazing artist. um didn't have too much interaction with

01:26:28

him, but he came out, said thank you, said hi and that and then went straight back into the room because he was on

01:26:37

vocal rest, didn't want to be around people to catch anything as well cuz I think at that time he had just come off

01:26:42

being sick cuz he was on a tour in Australia. Um yeah, Kio, what was Kolio like? Oh,

01:26:50

Kio I got to know really well. He is amazing man. Amazing man. I love Cool. Every everyone thinks um Gangsters

01:26:57

Paradise, but Fantastic Voyage and See You When You Get There. Two of my favorite songs ever. See You When You

01:27:02

Get There is one of my favorites. Um he's a really good cook. A really good cook actually. Yeah. He made like this

01:27:09

um three chili chicken pepper um uh dish for us and he loved it. E. And he loves

01:27:15

like he he bought out a cookbook eventually. Um I remember we went to his house a few times and he would cook and

01:27:20

make sandwiches for us and things like that. And he's just he was just so he was just so vibrant, so alive, you

01:27:29

know, and he was he I always saw good things about him. Like I never saw him do drugs and things like that. So, you

01:27:35

know, it was sad when I heard that he passed away. I did have a little tear. He died a couple of years. Did you?

01:27:40

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I I I reached out to his nephew who used to be his hype man who I knew really well as well. Um

01:27:48

and who used to live with him and Yeah. like we used to record in our studio all

01:27:53

the time. Like he was just a wonderful man. He was just a really wonderful man. I'm so I'm so grateful that I did

01:27:59

actually do that tour with him because he just loved our culture. He loved New Zealand. And he was like, "Man, we got

01:28:06

to go back there. K, y'all got to take me back." I'm like, "Okay." What was

01:28:10

that? Was that like a juicy fest or something? No. No. It was the Kulio tour. Oh, the Kio. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Um,

01:28:16

who else is there? Gosh. Pink. Did I open up for Pink? Christ Church in Oakland. Um it was probably

01:28:24

before she had children and met her partner and what probably wasn't in a most um colorful it was called the

01:28:31

colorful time of her life. Oh yeah. Oh, amazing. Oh, awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The party girl era. Yeah. Her party girl

01:28:38

era. Um, I remember her having to cancel a few, you know, meet and greets and things like that cuz she didn't have a

01:28:45

voice anymore or she was quite sick from the night before partying and drinking the night before. So, oh yeah, she she

01:28:52

was um supposed to be headliner on this tour, this um one day festival thing at Western Springs called Rumba with um I

01:28:58

was at Shaggy Kaye, Emma Bun and a few others and she was the headline act and she pulled out and was there as well.

01:29:05

Sophie Monk. Sophie Monk. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And and you were on that stage too. Yeah, I was on that stage. I

01:29:10

got to meet a lot of them as well. That was cool. That was um I think I was more

01:29:15

nervous about doing that than any other gig. I think because having to stand in front of people that you actually know

01:29:21

and I literally you had to walk to the stage and I would K Kaye, you know, and I'm thinking, damn, I actually know you

01:29:30

guys. And the whole time I'm doing that, I'm like, am I singing well? Am I doing

01:29:36

good? Am I doing the right moves? Am I Gosh, I'm going to forget something? Uh,

01:29:40

like I was the worst at second guessing myself every time. But just before have the biggest nerves, the biggest like

01:29:51

butterflies in your stomach and then boom, you go out and you just got to roll with it and just try and channel

01:29:58

all those nerves just to go on stage. And then you come off and you're on such

01:30:03

a high. And then I realized that my fly was down the whole time. Or that or or the moment where I

01:30:13

ripped my top trying to do the and one plus one and and I was like hold it up. Well, thankfully this was a time where

01:30:23

um there might have been like Nokia phones with cameras, but they're very blurry. No one's going to Oh, the the

01:30:28

pictures are so pixelated now. Yeah. Wow. These are good memories. And um Oh, and off off the back of that stuff, you

01:30:34

you got on Celebrity T. You were on one of the original Celebrity Treasure Island episodes, 2003. Yes. Yeah. Who

01:30:40

were you on with? Who was on? Matthew Ridge, Nikki Watson, Charlotte Dawson. Oh, rest in peace. Oh yes. Wow. Yep.

01:30:47

Um Gre Robertson, Jenny May. Me and Jenny May. Oh my gosh. So, you know, when we went on there, so this is before

01:30:55

like they do it really really well now. They they they really knuckle down on things. But we were told that we weren't

01:31:02

allowed to take any makeup, any medications on there, no no foods, no snacks, no nothing. They checked our

01:31:09

bags. So that's cool. How come when we wake up in the morning, do I see Nikki

01:31:17

Watson, Charlotte Dawson, Gre Robertson, all of them getting their faces ready and me and Jenny May are like walking

01:31:24

and waking up. We got hooping and then like pickle in our eyes and stuff like that. Our hair is like out here and

01:31:29

we're just like, "Hey, what the are you guys serious?" And then at night they're like, we're

01:31:37

sitting there and we're having a laugh and stuff like that. And Nikki, but hey

01:31:41

girl, you want some chocolate? Where the hell did you get chocolate from? I've

01:31:45

been starving myself over here all day and you've had chocolate in your sleeping bag the whole time. I'm like,

01:31:50

oh. So then, you know, we were also in that thing with Matthew Ridge, Maralis. Um, I remember it was the the whole goat

01:31:59

saga like he wanted to We were actually really hungry. We were actually really hungry. Um, oh, someone was going to

01:32:06

kill a goat. Yeah. Yeah. Was it like Coxy, Anthony Ray Parker? [ __ ] It was 20 23 years ago. Yeah. No.

01:32:14

No. So, yeah. And I so before we had actually gone to the island cuz they they put us on a boat. We actually went

01:32:21

to the island. So we was at the Sheridan first and they're like look go put yourself rest up you know make sure you

01:32:27

get all your contraband out of your bag and everything. Go and have some fun before we have the dinner de you know

01:32:33

we're going to do the briefing and then we're we're gone. We're gone at 5:00

01:32:37

a.m. in the morning straight on the boat and we're going straight into it. And

01:32:40

we're like okay cool. So me, Matthew Ridge, um Mark Ellis, and it was one other person, I can't

01:32:48

remember who it was, we all got on the jet skis. And this first time I'd ever

01:32:52

been on a jet ski. I'm like, stupid to do in Fiji with waves because, you know, you just get tossed.

01:33:00

And I got thrown off the jet ski and tossed around and I scratched my shoulder on the reef. Didn't think

01:33:08

anything of it. I was like, "Oh yeah, all good. What a stupid thing to do, you

01:33:12

know, take my pride and take pick up my undies out of my bikini that almost fell

01:33:17

off as well and get out of the water and, you know, get take the take the jet ski back. Four, no, three, four days

01:33:26

into being on the island once we started, it got infected and it started to spread the rash and it went up my

01:33:33

neck and I could feel it. It was getting really, really hot. And so I was saying,

01:33:36

"Hey, look, you know, can I have something? can I just have a cream or something to go on to it? Like surely

01:33:41

there's something like that. Like this isn't, you know, thing for me to go

01:33:44

home. But everyone everyone was going, you know, I need to go home. I I I want to go home. I want to do this. I want to

01:33:51

do that. So, um I wasn't allowed to get anything. I started realizing that things were a

01:33:57

bit, you know, made up. They were really faked. And I was like, look, this is no point

01:34:03

for me to be here. Like I actually thought like Jetty May and I were got a broken net and we were literally making

01:34:08

a hinaki, you know, trying to catch some fish. Like we were out there actually trying to do stuff and no one else is

01:34:14

doing. I was like, "This is no fun. This is actually not like not fun." So I was

01:34:19

like, "Ah." And they're not going to give me anything for this. This is

01:34:22

actually getting really painful. I'm like, "You know what? Matthew Ridge,

01:34:26

they were having a conversation of who when was people going to go home." Matthew's like, "Oh, I'll go home on

01:34:31

Thursday cuz I've got to get home for my son's birthday." And so and so was saying,

01:34:36

"Oh, yeah. Well, I'll go home after you then, or do you want to go home before

01:34:40

me?" And he was like, "Oh," you know, and I was like, "Actually, I'm going to

01:34:44

go home. I'll go home today." Like, you vote me. I'm I'm good. I'm going to go

01:34:48

home. Like, that's it. So, yeah, I ended up going home. I wasn't the first, but I

01:34:52

was just like, "Yeah, I'm done." Yeah. I think um yeah, so much has changed since

01:34:57

then and now. like the the duty of care like uh I'm not going to hold back a

01:35:02

cream. Yeah. But then, you know, that really put my perspective. It gave me perspective in doing reality TV. And I I

01:35:09

was like, um, so this is what behind the scenes reality TV is like. And, you know, there were little things that, you

01:35:16

know, producers would say and do and, you know, okay, well, you two go over here and you two walk out of the bush

01:35:21

together. And you're like, what are they conspiring? Why are they together? You

01:35:26

know, I'm like, you grown ass man. like I was like at that time I was kind of

01:35:32

thinking you're old enough to be my dad you know yeah you yeah you did a lot at

01:35:37

a really young age like pre20 you did so much is that is this when your radio career started you start you're at

01:35:42

flavor now doing the breakfast show you started at flavor as well right yeah yeah no no I started at flavor so um was

01:35:48

that around this same sort of time like early 2000s yeah yeah yeah it was kind of yeah I guess um off the back of your

01:35:55

pop career yep off the back so I'd been dropped from Universal I had gone to do

01:36:00

Celebrity Treasure Island. I kind of fell into this little bit of a depression thing because I really didn't

01:36:07

understand the people that were around me at the time. Lots of people wanted things. We want money for this. We want

01:36:13

money for that. And they were going to the record company asking people for things without my knowledge. And I had

01:36:19

no idea that a lot of things that were going on. So, you know, I I I started to become very much inverted, a recluse.

01:36:27

Um, I was an introvert pretty much. I wasn't leaving the house. I was really

01:36:31

depressed. Um, and I didn't know it was quite I didn't know that that was

01:36:35

depression at the time. Um, and I was I think I I I would even turn down offers and gigs and stuff like I was just no, I

01:36:45

can't I can't because how how can I trust these people? I was having real

01:36:48

bad trust issues. And um I just turned around and just one day I was like, you know what? I've really got to get myself

01:36:55

out of this hole. And I was just like, drink a cup of concrete, okay? Harden up. Get your ass out of this house. So,

01:37:03

I started walking. Then I started running. And then I thought, okay, I actually need to do something. Like, I'm

01:37:08

this is not hitting it at the moment. This is good. It's a start, but I actually need to do something. And I was

01:37:14

like, you know what? What is something that I actually love doing? What is my what is one of my passions? I love

01:37:19

playing sports. So, I went back and I played net. I love playing touch. I went back and I played touch and it just so

01:37:24

happened that um one of my one of my friends, shout out to Lou, she goes, "Can you come and

01:37:32

play touch for us?" It was NZME team. She goes, "I just need fill in." I was

01:37:35

like, "Yeah." And when I got there, I was super nervous cuz I was like, "I know

01:37:41

these people." Like, I've seen them in the in in the radio station at the time.

01:37:45

I think it was um TRN it was called. It wasn't easy to the radio network. Yeah.

01:37:50

And um I was just like it made me feel nervous playing against them and stuff. She was like no no no like that guy

01:37:57

there I reckon you should talk to him. I was like why? She goes he's starting a

01:38:01

new radio station. And I was like hm. And then it dawned on me about maybe a month before I got dropped

01:38:11

from the record label. I had done a takeover at the vault in on the edge nights with Mike Mike Pu. Oh yeah. And

01:38:19

he had said to me, you know, you're really good at talking to all these people. You have a really good voice.

01:38:25

You should do radio. And at the time, I laughed. I laughed at it. I laughed at him for saying it. And so that was that

01:38:31

mic. Yeah. Mike Pu. Wow. And I laughed because I was like, "Boo, who wants to

01:38:35

listen to my voice? I don't even like the sound of my own voice talking."

01:38:40

Um, and so when she said that, that triggered off in my head and I was like, hm, okay, I'm going to talk to him. So,

01:38:50

played the whole played the whole game. Walked up to James Daniels, who was the content director of Flavor, who was

01:38:57

starting it, and I said, "Hi, I'm Kaye." And he goes, "Yeah, I know who you are."

01:39:01

And I said, "I hear you're starting a radio station." And he goes, I said,

01:39:04

"That really cool one that's just playing hip-hop and R&B at the moment."

01:39:07

And he was like, "Yeah." I said, "You got any jobs?" And he just looked at me

01:39:13

like, "What do you mean? You're Miss Broken Wings. You're the little teen

01:39:18

queen of pop, you know, princess of Pop type thing. What? What do you mean?" And

01:39:22

I was just like, "Look, I You must be a millionaire." Everyone was looking at me like

01:39:28

that. Um, if I was Britney Spears and we had social media back then, you know. Um,

01:39:35

but yeah, I just I just asked him and he was just like I just said, "Look, I just

01:39:40

really want to try something different. I am in a space at the moment where I just really want to just get out there

01:39:46

and just explore my options." He's like, "Cool. Come see me tomorrow." Went down

01:39:52

there. He goes, "Right, would you want to go out today?" Excuse me. I said, "Yeah, I'll go out. Let's

01:40:00

go." And he goes, "Okay, I'm going to send you out in the truck in the Hummer

01:40:05

in the flavor Hummer and you're going to go out and do a cross." I'm like,

01:40:11

"Okay." In my head, I have no idea what a cross is. I don't know what this radio

01:40:15

language is. I just know what promotion. He's like, "You just go out there, give

01:40:18

away Burger King vouchers. Cool." Went down to Burger King, stood out on Lincoln Road at Burger King. When it was

01:40:24

my time, I talked so fast that no one understood where I was and no one came. I ended up having to give it to

01:40:33

the homeless guy that was walking by trying to wash windscreens. So, he was happy. Was it you talk fast just cuz you

01:40:39

were nervous or Yeah. Yeah. This was the first time actually doing it. Anyway, he

01:40:43

I got back and they all laughed and everything. I was like, "I'm so sorry."

01:40:46

He's like, "No, no, no, no." He was like, "I actually really like the tone

01:40:49

of your voice. What do you reckon?" And I was like, "Yeah, cool." did it for a couple

01:40:54

of days and then he goes, "Hey, you know, I really, really like the tone of

01:40:58

your voice. Do you think that maybe we could try you on nights?" I was like,

01:41:03

"Yeah, sure." And he goes, "Cool. Do you know how to panel?"

01:41:09

"Yeah, of course I do." And in my head, I'm like, "How hard does this be? Just

01:41:13

turn on the microphone and talk." Well, guys, there's a lot more to radio, okay?

01:41:18

There's so many buttons. There's a lot more going on on that screen than you

01:41:22

think. And um I ran straight into the studio and at the time Nixon was doing Drive. He just started on Drive and I

01:41:34

said, "Oi, JD's going to give me a shot at night. Tell me everything that you

01:41:39

know." He got a big A4 piece of paper and wrote, "Do not touch these and put

01:41:44

it over these two buttons." He goes, "Just go in the other studio and have a

01:41:49

tutu." And I was like, "Is that all?" and he goes, "Yeah." So, I watched him

01:41:53

for a bit, wrote a few things down, and then I went into the studio. I had the number one night show for a couple of

01:41:58

years. Wow. Yeah. And I didn't know about Radio Awards back then. Had I had known, I definitely would have submitted

01:42:05

my show. Oh, yeah. Radio Awards. So, yeah, last year at the uh New Zealand Radio. So,

01:42:10

last year you um Yeah. Should we get to that? Yeah, we'll get to that now. Yeah.

01:42:14

Last year at the radio was really special. Like you um got like a what is it like a lifetime achievement award or

01:42:19

Oh, got it. It's it was just your um outstanding contribution to radio. Yeah.

01:42:24

Thank you for your service type thing. Um and your your um teammates from my FM all stood up in their in their seats in

01:42:31

this um theater at Sky City and gave you a hucker. I was sitting there with goosebumps. So

01:42:36

emot hucker had been done in so long. That was really beautiful. Yeah. I was really grateful. It's a lot. E it's a

01:42:46

lot. Yeah. I miss him. I I I I have so much love for that time in my life as well. You know, I

01:42:55

obviously had a few kids while I was there, you know, coming back from being in America to my going to breakfast for

01:43:03

a couple of years and then moving into days and and being on days for oh 11 10 11 years. So yeah, you were

01:43:14

part of the furniture there. Yeah. Well, yeah, you owned that slot. Uh, yeah. Yeah. So, yes, didn't reflect

01:43:22

it, though. It never does. Never does, does it? No. No. You don't do it for money. So, you did that stint in the

01:43:27

early 2000s at um at at Flavor. Um, then there was the LA years. Which we've

01:43:31

discussed. Yes. Then I moved to LA and then when I came back, I came back to Mai and that was really special cuz I

01:43:37

grew up listening to Mai, you know. So having that there and and being on that station, I was well aware of the [ __ ]

01:43:46

papa, the co-papa of that station and why it was there and what it was there for. And I still to this day believe

01:43:54

that if you hold that value and you hold that knowledge that you should that that

01:44:01

should be at the first and foremost at the forefront of why you're doing radio.

01:44:05

And there's a lot of stations that have different copapa and different um histories, but just knowing about that

01:44:11

history and knowing where you're what happened and and how to get how they got

01:44:16

there and why it started like it's just like anything in your culture once you

01:44:20

know where you come from. You know where you're going. So it was a beautiful time

01:44:24

and and it was a great time for me to grow as a person, as a woman, as a mother, you know, a great time for me to

01:44:30

grow as a radio announcer. And I have to say I learned a lot being at Media Works. I learned a lot from the school

01:44:38

of Leyon. I learned a lot from the school of Nixon. I learned a lot from being on Breakfast. And then I learned a

01:44:43

lot being on days. Um I learned a lot about radio in itself and just being on that other side of I've been a singer

01:44:52

trying to get your your songs on the radio, how to help other artists, what they need to know, how it works. because

01:44:58

it's frustrating as an artist to look from outside in going, I've got a hot

01:45:02

song. Why aren't you playing it? You know, so it's it's understanding the

01:45:07

processes behind things and that just because you think you've got one hot song, so does 20,000 other people who

01:45:13

are trying to push it at the same time, you know? So, there was just so many elements to it. But I was there you know

01:45:19

and it was a beautiful moment but I came to a point where I wanted to grow. I mentioned that you know once you

01:45:31

have stopped learning that it's time to move on and that was my whole perspective at that time. I had stopped

01:45:40

challen being challenged. I I'd stopped growing as a person, I think, in that

01:45:45

role that I was in. And same role for 11 years will do that. Yeah. In any line of

01:45:50

work, I think. Yeah. And I don't get me wrong, I tried I tried to find things to

01:45:55

keep lighting my fire and you know, I just I I needed something and I just didn't know what it was. So, I started

01:46:03

applying for other jobs at other stations and I kept on getting the door shut on me without any explanation. So,

01:46:11

oh, internally at weeks. Yeah. And I I like I I just kept trying. I was like, "Okay, maybe it's not my time." And and

01:46:17

maybe and there were there were so many other great announcers. Like I I don't

01:46:21

think I'm the cream of the crop. I don't think that I'm the messiah of radio or

01:46:25

anything. Um and I don't I don't ever think that, you know, I'm bigger than

01:46:29

anybody else. I think I'm still learning even now being on breakfast radio in

01:46:34

that capacity and in that I love the challenge because I can learn on the go. But at that point in time, I thought,

01:46:41

"This is it. I I've now gone into training other people up, training other

01:46:46

people to go on to radio, to do breakfast, to do weekends, to do the edge, to do George, to do more FM, you

01:46:53

know, I started training all the other people." And I'm thinking, I actually

01:46:56

like this part of it, mentoring people. And I thought, maybe that's it. Maybe

01:47:02

this is where I'm at. And when I got turned down for a job for another station, I kind of looked around and I

01:47:09

thought, man, here I am training these people who want to be on radio where I am, and here I am trying to be on radio

01:47:15

where they are and these people that I admire. You know, I'd sit there and I'd

01:47:20

look at these announcers going, I want your seat. But it it felt wrong looking at your

01:47:26

colleagues, your friends, you know, people who you who you respect going, I have to sit here and wait here for you

01:47:32

to be culturally canceled, carcing, you know, this industry is so small and and I thought, is somebody

01:47:43

waiting for me to do that? And then music started playing and I didn't know who the artist was. I was like, who the

01:47:50

hell and how do you say this name? And I started feeling really old. And then I started looking around me and you know

01:47:57

other announcers weren't even born when Broken Wings came out. I was like, you

01:48:02

know what? It is time for me to move over. You know, I've done enough here to

01:48:07

create this environment and make this space better than it was when I came into it. It's now time. And it like my

01:48:14

FM is such a cool brand. It's such an amazing brand and it's such an effective

01:48:19

brand. It's such a great um catalyst for our youth and our langatahi and just our

01:48:24

our our community, our minority community as well and it needs better. And I just didn't feel like I was doing

01:48:33

that for them anymore. And I thought, you know what, it needs fresher meat. I need to leave. I need to make

01:48:39

way for the Langati to come through and and give them a chance. Give them a shot. And so that was my whole thought

01:48:46

process. I didn't have a job to go to. I was like, "This is it." Then I found out

01:48:50

I was pregnant with um my sixth child and I thought, "Wow, after the last experience, I can't have that happen

01:48:59

again." So, it just all kind of just fell into this and Yeah. And I you kind

01:49:06

of just know, you know, when you feel it. Yeah. And I I wasn't I mean, I was

01:49:12

sad to go because I know I'm leaving friends. I'm leaving some great, amazing, talented people. But at the

01:49:18

same time, I'm like I didn't feel hurt and and second guessing or feel guilty

01:49:23

about my decision. You know, I wasn't going, "Oh, no. I changed my mind. I

01:49:26

changed my mind. I wasn't freaking out about it. So, I just knew that I needed

01:49:30

to put myself in an uncomfortable position in order for me to grow and in order for someone else to come through,

01:49:36

make room. Make room. You know, I'm not the gatekeeper. So, you know, it's only

01:49:41

right for me to move on over and let someone else shine in there. And people are just they're they're amazing. Like

01:49:48

the the people who have come into that and filled those positions now in the way that it's developing now, that

01:49:53

station is only going to go from strength to strength. But it was just my time. And then divine intervention at

01:50:00

the same time I get offered a position to go and lecture at the radio New Zealand radio training school with Kim

01:50:07

Addison and Leah. And I was like, great people, great opportunity. That's what I

01:50:14

was doing. Why not get paid to do it? So I was getting paid to do that, you know?

01:50:20

So it just and I got to work and I get to work to this day. I still work for Awani. So I still lecture in the

01:50:26

afternoons and I I get to work in a MAI environment which is just so beautiful. It's so inviting and it just it really

01:50:34

fills my cup and I it's been a long time since I've been in a place where that

01:50:40

actually has done that. Filled my cup, filled my waway and just given me something that I can just grow with and

01:50:46

I love it. It's it's so inviting and I love the students that we get to work

01:50:50

with. I love being able to expose them to what radio is, content creating is. And I I love getting them to come into

01:50:57

the studio and going, "Well, if you guys want to know what radio is, wake up at 4

01:51:00

in the morning and come in. You know, you want to see people work. That's work. You know, it's not all

01:51:07

about the glitz and the glam and the clout. You know, if you're doing it, if

01:51:10

you're doing and you're chasing something for clout, for the dream, for the I want to be famous. You're doing it

01:51:15

for the wrong reasons. And, you know, if you're doing it for the money, you're

01:51:18

doing it for the wrong reasons. Yeah. You got to do what you love and then hopefully the money will will follow.

01:51:24

Did um so you you Yeah. You did so much at my FM. like the the changes you saw over the time you were there um are just

01:51:31

exponential. Like it was um it was like really underfunded when you started. E like it was a neglected it was a great

01:51:37

station. So Media Works had just acquired them right and was that was in a different building like with a leaky

01:51:41

roof right north. Yeah. So um when Nixon and I came back from um America, we literally were doing our

01:51:49

show and I think it was lightning. It was a storm and lightning hit the building and it cut off the music. And

01:51:55

so literally Nixon's like, "And now it's Kaye with broken wings. Sing." And I was

01:52:01

like, "Take these broken wings." So, you know, I was like, "Oh my gosh, this is

01:52:06

actual real radio." And we had to stick the CD in. So, yeah. No money, no no

01:52:10

resources. And it's worth I I don't know what the ratings were at the time, but

01:52:13

probably like a 10% share, which is massive. It's a massive massive performing station. Um, but just didn't

01:52:18

have sort of any funding or resources, eh? Yeah. No, no, it was it was slumping at that time. But you know to be a part

01:52:25

of something and to again it's that whole go through the creative process and see it from a vision to that process

01:52:32

of growing and creating something that comes to be amazing and the things that you can do with it. Like I I I started

01:52:40

to realize the potential and and my purpose for being there and I started to realize like hey I'm on my journey. I

01:52:48

want to speak more maldi on air. Hey, I want to reach out and be more a part of the community because that's where it's

01:52:54

at, you know? And I remembered listening and being a part of like a lot of radio

01:52:59

promos, tossing sausages and and just getting to meet people and how amazing that was. How like radio stations how we

01:53:06

we've gone past going back to that being human, you know, so making that connection. Yeah. And making that

01:53:13

connection, that human connection of listeners, now it's all on I saw you on

01:53:17

a video. I know what your whole entire life is and I get to say and and text and comment whatever the hell I want

01:53:23

because I think I know you because I see everything you put on in social media. You know, it's it's it's really

01:53:29

fictitious. And I I'd like to see radio go back to the raw rarity of what it is.

01:53:35

But then at the same time, I understand it's got to grow. It's got to evolve.

01:53:39

And things like this being podcast, really getting to see the people behind the scenes and really delving into what

01:53:46

they are. Maybe it's a it's that growth that we get to go through. You spent

01:53:50

years and years like I watch you on radio and watch you do amazing things in radio and got to see you grow into where

01:53:59

you were at now and I got to actually experience the transition of who you were in radio and to who you are now

01:54:07

getting to meet this actual Dominic Harvey a you're an amazing person you're an

01:54:13

amazing man I think so and and you've gone through a lot and you know I I I always used to you know stop and try and

01:54:20

chat to you when you were walking Kanye as I was trying to race into my show and

01:54:24

stuff and and and I always knew that you you're an amazing man, you know, and

01:54:29

there was so much depth to you and there's so much more to you than just the voice behind the the mic and just

01:54:35

behind this this character of a of a radio presenter that everyone thought and that that everyone hated or loved or

01:54:44

loved to hate, you know. Well, yeah. We we you had to be like polarizing in a way. Like I think part of that is um but

01:54:50

then there wasn't social media when you were doing that. So of course you had to

01:54:54

be because how else were you going to get people to want to listen into a show? You had to there wasn't a camera,

01:55:00

you know, like it's theater of the mind in radio. It's all about the effects,

01:55:04

the voice, the emotion. So you really had to go the extra mile, be over the top. And it just became so ingrained

01:55:11

into people, you know, and radio has evolved since then. And it will continue to evolve. We as people and you know we

01:55:20

just need to evolve with it and find different ways to make those connections with the listeners because at the end of

01:55:25

the day we do it for them. You know we do it to make their day. We do it to speak to them. That's why I love music

01:55:32

and I think that's why I've tried to keep my life around music. It's such a

01:55:37

great way and a and a universal language. You know, you could listen to any song in any language and you can

01:55:43

understand and feel the emotive behind that song and it can speak to anybody. It can change someone's day. And that's

01:55:51

what I love about it. No day is ever the same, but yet you can speak to them through a microphone and and we get to

01:55:58

be a part of their day, their life. You love it. E, I've got a real horrible

01:56:03

question for you. Um, here we go. What's um so you you started you started in

01:56:08

Flavor, short time at Flavor, long time at my FM, and now you're back at Flavor.

01:56:13

Which which um station feels like home? That is a horrible question. It's a horrible question. Does it feel like

01:56:21

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um two homes. Maybe you got two homes. I don't I don't You

01:56:26

know what? And and this is probably people are going to go that's not a nice

01:56:30

answer. Um but I don't care. Um, I don't see my job as being home. That's a great answer. No, it's it's

01:56:38

it's a real healthy perspective. Yeah, I don't see my job being um home. And I I

01:56:43

see that because I witness so many people be swallowed up in their jobs and be consumed with radio. If you don't

01:56:51

have something going for you outside of your job, you will be sucked into this this hole and it will suck the life out

01:56:58

of you. And I think that goes with any job. Yeah. And then then you have the risk of when if that job's taken away

01:57:05

from you and it's someone else's decision, then it's like your whole um

01:57:10

what defines you is gone. Yeah. Yeah. Uh and I I I think that's [ __ ] sad. If

01:57:15

someone's defined by their job. Yeah. And I I think that I realized that at an

01:57:19

early stage when I got dropped from Universal as Kaye and I was like, "Oh my

01:57:24

gosh, who am I without this?" Like, "What do I do now? Where am I supposed

01:57:30

to go? I didn't finish high school. I haven't gone to university. What the

01:57:33

hell am I supposed to do now? You know, and I had to go through this whole thing

01:57:37

of hold on, I'm more than just a voice. I'm more than just a singer. I'm more

01:57:44

than just a radio announcer. I'm more than I'm more than this. I'm smarter

01:57:47

than that. I'm better than that. You know, this doesn't define who I am.

01:57:52

These are things that I love to do. These are things that I can do. What defines me is what I do with it and how

01:57:59

I do it. and what what I get out of it. That's what defines me. It's not about

01:58:05

the what you get paid and what you do from one hour to the next. You know, I could talk on a microphone or I can go

01:58:12

and clean toilets. You know that that there's no two ways about it. Yeah. You

01:58:16

don't have that sort of pride thing, do you? Or that ego. I think I had to swallow that a long time ago, you know.

01:58:21

And I think the sooner you can do that, the less you'll let it consume you, you

01:58:25

know, and and let it be the be all and end all because it's heartbreaking to

01:58:30

watch people and I this is why I I sympathize with sports people who leave a long career of like league or rugby

01:58:38

and then they're just like, "What now? What now?" You know, and it's

01:58:42

heartbreaking to watch that, you know? So yeah, I try I try to tell everyone like even my students now, you need a

01:58:50

hobby outside of, you know, radio. You need a hobby outside of your job. Don't

01:58:56

one, you need it because you need content. Two, you need it cuz you need a life. You need to have something else in

01:59:01

your life going for you. And three, you should always have a high side hustle that you're in control of because you're

01:59:09

working for someone. You're a business. you're you're part of that business.

01:59:15

There's a process, there's a system, there's a game. We're all playing in the

01:59:19

game. The sooner you realize that, the sooner you can actually jump on the wagon and do what you can and make it

01:59:25

work for you. Yeah. And there's never been a better time, especially for people in media, to

01:59:30

start a side hustle than now. Yeah. Like build your social media, learn how to do

01:59:34

the Tik Toks. I'm too old for this [ __ ] Tik Tok. Yeah. But it's mainly just like

01:59:40

clips that my social media guy puts up from the Oh, so somebody else does your TikTok. Yeah. Yeah. I can I can sit

01:59:46

there for hours a trying to figure out how to get the text on at the right time. And then I see other people and

01:59:51

they'll whip one out in like a couple of minutes and it just takes me too long.

01:59:54

It blows my mind. Like I was just watching this the other day and it was Will Smith standing with this person,

01:59:59

this young person and they have 8.9 million views and all they're doing is standing next to Will Smith and they're

02:00:08

holding the camera up and they're just like doing these faces. I'm like, "So

02:00:13

what do they do? Do they give you advice on something? Are they doing something?

02:00:16

Like what are they actually doing?" And it's nothing. And I'm like, this is what

02:00:23

our life has come to. Just standing in front of a camera talking [ __ ] This has been so much fun. There's um um

02:00:32

I'm going to have to wrap it up cuz I've been busting for a piss for like don't

02:00:36

drink all your water at once. Um we haven't even you've been through so much

02:00:40

adversity and you're so resilient. We haven't even talked about your um fifth

02:00:44

baby. Uh like born 12 weeks premature. Yeah. Almost died. You were very sick for a while, eh? Oh. Oh, well, yeah, I

02:00:53

guess. Yeah, I guess you could say that. Um, so I went in on December um at 23 weeks pregnant. My waters broke and I um

02:01:05

had her in February and we didn't come out of hospital until April. So, um my

02:01:11

waters broke, she turned head plugged up the hole, so she only had water around her head until 29 weeks. She was born at

02:01:20

29 weeks and um you know I I got to give birth to her naturally and that was great. Uh and then she went straight

02:01:29

into an incubator. You know at that point I was like why are you putting my baby into a rubbish bag? Like what the

02:01:34

hell are you guys doing? And not to know that that was actually how they keep their babies warm before putting them in

02:01:39

the in the incubator. Um, is it a rubbish bag or is it like a special medical bag that looks like a I thought

02:01:45

it was a rubbish bag cuz it just looked like the normal clear plastic that you know you put rubbish in. Um, cuz I'm

02:01:50

like if it's for heating then why don't you just put them in the tin foil bags,

02:01:55

you know, the blankets. Those emergency. Yeah, but I Hey, if you're a doctor out

02:01:59

there, you could tell me different. But I look like a rubbish bag to me. That's

02:02:02

what I said to them. Um, my husband, you know, went went with her and stuff and,

02:02:08

you know, it was a real touchandgo moment. like we didn't know how that whole situation was going to go. The

02:02:14

conversations around having a baby or being in labor uh at 23 to to to 30 weeks is a really morbid and stressful

02:02:23

conversation. The the vitality of and and the lifespan of a child at that age and and born at that thing is really

02:02:30

touchand go. They can catch even if they're born healthy and fine, they can still catch things. you know, they still

02:02:36

got to grow because she's no longer inside my puku and where it's safe where

02:02:41

I thought um and yeah, so we're in hospital, she's still on an um a whiff of oxygen touch

02:02:50

and go there like with her oxygen levels and stuff. Um we finally come out and 4

02:02:55

weeks later she catches RSV and almost dies twice. Um it was horrible. It was I I don't wish it on anybody, you know,

02:03:04

and and to witness that to see that um like my oldest son, he almost died from RSV and I was in Long Beach Memorial. He

02:03:12

was in a coma for 8 weeks in an induced coma um in a paralytic coma where he was

02:03:19

on actual life support. Uh and I kind of didn't understand it then because I

02:03:25

didn't really get to see it in its full entirety. I didn't get to see his

02:03:30

struggle. I had gone home for a shower because he they just told me that he had had the flu and he was just needed a

02:03:36

little bit extra help to breathe. So when they intubated him and when I got back to the hospital cuz they said he

02:03:42

had a code blue, um I was like, okay. And that was kind of my first like knowledge around, okay, this is what RSV

02:03:52

is, not knowing that it was rampant here in New Zealand at the time I had my daughter um honor and yeah, she um

02:04:03

almost died twice. like it's a real big struggle and I just pleaded with them

02:04:09

like last resort to intubate her to put her on life support last resort because it can really damage the baby. It can it

02:04:18

can save their life. Yes. But they come out with could be brain development, ears, eyes, all that. There's so many

02:04:26

risks to actually intubating them that they'd rather not if they can avoid it.

02:04:31

So there was no room in any other hospital to go to. We were at Middlemore at the time. Um and yeah, what would

02:04:38

normally take a child at her age or just any normal child, healthy child, uh would take 7 days. It took her 9 weeks.

02:04:48

And yeah, it was horrible. Both me and my husband were arguing with doctors. Um we were pleading with doctors. We were

02:04:56

sympathizing with doctors and other families that were in there. We were just at the hospital 24/7 juggling kids

02:05:04

at home and here at the hospital. Then she finally makes it through, comes out, and then 2 3 months

02:05:13

later, I go, "Okay, I actually need to go back to work. I'm struggling mentally." Um I think at the time um my

02:05:23

doctor said that I was going through postpartum depression uh and which is quite common after having a premature

02:05:30

baby being in hospital for so long myself and then giving birth and then having to go through that prematurity

02:05:36

and nurses at the hospital when I was there told me that I would need to go and speak to someone and I thought I'll

02:05:42

be fine just need to get the hell out of this hospital. Um, and so I was going through postpartum and I needed to find

02:05:49

some normaly. I needed to connect. I needed to get out of the house. I needed to stop hearing beeping in my head. I

02:05:55

needed to constantly stop hovering over her and to is she breathing? Is she doing this? Is she doing that? Is she

02:06:02

growing? Is she having brain issues? Is she this, that, this? You know, all these things. And I went back to work.

02:06:10

I drive to work and my husband's at home with the kids. I think we might have been locked down

02:06:22

and I go into the building, say hi, start walking towards the studio. I walk past

02:06:32

the edge. I walk to the ramp, say hi to the breakfast crew. I walk up. I open the door. I get a phone call and it's my

02:06:41

husband screaming. And it's a scream that I never want to hear ever again ever. Ever.

02:06:49

Ever. She's going blue. She's dying. She's not breathing. What do I do? You

02:06:54

need to come home. She's She's limp. She's struggling. She's She's I What do

02:07:00

I do? What? And I'm just screaming, "Call an ambulance. Call an ambulance."

02:07:05

And he was like, "I've got the oxygen." At that point, I don't know

02:07:09

why, but I hadn't given back the oxygen tanks. And both my husband and I were

02:07:15

like, "Oh, maybe we should hang on to them." And for some reason, my husband

02:07:20

was by the oxygen tanks the day before and had tested it to see if it was still working, the valves and

02:07:28

everything, and hooked up the nasal canulas. I don't know why, but he got the nasal canulas, laid

02:07:38

her after doing CPR, and my oldest daughter called the ambulance, he shoved those canulas up her and turned the

02:07:45

oxygen up so far that that was probably her saving grace to keep her until the ambulance came and then rushed her to

02:07:52

hospital. um she had had caught a rhino virus which is just a common flu common cold

02:08:00

um and just stopped breathing and so yeah that was that was really scary and so Oh did you feel you

02:08:09

felt guilty for going back to work? I did. Yeah, I did. I felt guilty for going back to work. I felt guilty for

02:08:15

leaving my husband in that situation. I felt guilty that my kids had to see that

02:08:20

and experience that because every time anything happened to her, we were all on edge, especially my husband. Like it it

02:08:29

really triggered him. It really triggered him and it still triggers him to this day, you know, even with our our

02:08:34

our youngest baby. Any little cough, any little sound, what's wrong with him? Is

02:08:39

he okay? Yep. All right. You know, he's always always on edge, like just waiting, watching. He he's such a

02:08:46

hands-on dad, which I love. And, you know, he's he's so aware and he's really

02:08:51

quick, you know, real quick when he's around it. But it it really it changed a

02:08:55

dynamic of our relationship, of our family. And it really at first it was a strain because obviously there was a lot

02:09:02

that each of us were going through personally. And then to go through that together, we really realized we we need

02:09:10

to actually come together and we need to do this. we need we and it was really it

02:09:16

was really good for us I think in terms of realizing where we were at as a family and going through these things

02:09:23

because man that really does test your relationship. It really does. So um he had proposed to me obviously when I

02:09:31

found out I was pregnant to her after being together for 7 years and we had planned on getting married but then co

02:09:39

came so and then I found out I was pregnant and life happened and we really couldn't

02:09:45

do anything. She was on and off sick in and out of hospital for 2 years, you know. So that was really hard, but each

02:09:53

time just just keep powering through, just keep going through, you know, she's

02:09:58

going to get better every time. Just find a positive in it. You know, oh well, at least this time we didn't have

02:10:03

to go on oxygen. At least this time she didn't have to be induced into a coma or

02:10:08

put to sleep. And you know, these little things like, hey, at least this time she

02:10:11

could eat. You know, hey, she's still eating. There's more things that she can

02:10:15

do. You see her now, you would never think that she's been through all these

02:10:18

things. She's so feisty. She's so independent early on, right? Yeah. And

02:10:23

she's such a lioness. Like, she's so fiery. It's not funny. She gives us a

02:10:29

run for her money. She's not even the youngest in the house anymore, but she

02:10:32

still rules the coupe. She rules her dad. She's going wrapped around his finger. Like, she is an amazing little

02:10:38

little kid. And um and then when I got pregnant this time round um obviously when I left my and and decided okay I

02:10:48

actually need to focus on this because I was scared. I didn't want to get excited

02:10:52

about the pregnancy because here I was not even knowing if I could even make it to 23 weeks let alone make it through a

02:10:58

whole pregnancy which I didn't. But I'm so grateful that I was able to make it

02:11:04

to at least 32 weeks. I went into labor. waters broke and then nothing happened.

02:11:10

So it stalled for a couple of weeks and I was just by the grace of God that by 34 weeks, which is great because by 32

02:11:18

weeks their lungs had developed fully developed, um that he just needed to get fat and he was stuck under my ribs and I

02:11:25

ended up going into labor. So they had to cut me open and you know, my modeling days are now over.

02:11:34

Never going to get into a bikini ever again. Oh, no more no more Treasure Island. No more FHM shoots, man. You've

02:11:41

um Oh, we Did you do an FHM shoot? Yeah. Did you FHM? Um for is it for him mainly? For him magazine. It was like a

02:11:50

cover of the rugby magazine or painted as well. Right. Right. Yeah. You were sexualized at a very young age, eh? No,

02:11:56

I was 18 by then. Right. Right. Yeah. They didn't let me do that stuff until I

02:11:59

was of age. [ __ ] you've been through there's been so much adversity e like do you yeah how

02:12:06

are you so resilient just born this born this way or you know is it just like um scar tissue from

02:12:14

going through so much that's made you strong or I I don't know maybe it's

02:12:19

perspective maybe it's it's it's it's just uh how I'm built I don't know may I

02:12:26

give credit to great grandparents and my mom and dad you know I've watched my mom

02:12:30

be so resilient You know, I only realized my mom was human when I saw her crying at the age

02:12:35

of nine because someone had driven through the side of our house and the hot water boiler cupboard just burst and

02:12:41

and the dishwasher broke, the washing machine broke all at once and my dad was in Bosnia and she she was trying to be a

02:12:48

school teacher studying and holding down three jobs. So, you know, the the perspective is at least I have my

02:12:56

family. At least I have a roof over my head. I am alive. I have my health, which I'm grateful for. And everything

02:13:04

that happens happens for a reason. And I have to find that lesson in that reason.

02:13:10

Um, if I can get through that and maybe I haven't learned the lesson and it's

02:13:14

come around again, I wasn't listening the first time. So, pay attention. Pay attention

02:13:21

to your surroundings. What a role model. Thanks. What a role model you are. No, sincerely I mean that. My god. Um yeah,

02:13:28

we I'll tell you what this um this has been such a great interview and um I'll

02:13:32

tell you how I know this. Like I I had on my notes cards um to talk about Dancing with the Stars and for most

02:13:37

people that come on the podcast if they've been on Dancing with the Stars it might make like 10 minutes or 15

02:13:42

minutes. Haven't even got to it. No. seems compared to the other stuff the other um you know parts of your

02:13:49

tapestry with the stars is nothing. Oh I know that was a bit of stupidity at the

02:13:52

same time honestly. Um I did it for the Revolution tour which is an amazing tour

02:13:57

that goes around to um schools around New Zealand talking to kids uh as young as primary intermediate to all the way

02:14:05

to high school and they talk about uh talk to them about self harm uh youth suicide um you know that whole cyber

02:14:13

keeping your cyber safe and and finding a person to actually talk to. you know, that stuff happens way too much in our

02:14:19

country and and way too much to our kids and and it's bloody hard to, you know,

02:14:24

navigate and stuff and I think they do a fantastic job. And I thought, you know what, this is a great cause and if it's

02:14:31

meant to be, that's who I want to do it for. Um, and I was 16 weeks post C-section and got on there, did it,

02:14:42

needed a waist trainer to hold me up because I had no core muscles and I was spazzing out every time I got on the

02:14:49

dance floor, but we did it and and I'm grateful for it. Um, Oh, and you had people mom shaming you, eh? Oh, yeah.

02:14:57

Yeah. Get out. Um, yeah. What did she say? um you you're you're you've got it

02:15:03

from the neck up, but from the neck down you're not beautifully aesthetic, which

02:15:06

I didn't understand. And I had I don't think it had ever been done on the show

02:15:14

in its history or ever in New Zealand, but I grabbed the mic and I was like, "Excuse me, do you clear to clarify what

02:15:19

you just said?" Like, can you put it into context that we understand? Cuz I'm not a

02:15:25

professional dancer here. I'm dancing for charity. I'm supposed to be the

02:15:28

so-called celebrity. I'm not here to do all these fancy dance moves. Like my

02:15:34

poor dance partner couldn't even lift me up. I love you. But you know, and it was it was a

02:15:42

time where I was just like that is not cool. Um she thought that I had some superpower because I was on radio and

02:15:51

she was on television. Um but eventually we worked it out. I did say to the producers, "Hey, look, you let her know

02:15:58

I want to talk to her face to face cuz that was not cool." And they were like,

02:16:03

"Um, do do we need to be there? Do we need security?" And I was like, "No, this is just adult woman towoman.

02:16:12

Like, we're going to have a conversation because I actually want to understand

02:16:15

what the hell she was trying to say." And eventually I got it. Like she she's

02:16:20

an amazing amazing judge, amazing dancer. And I guess just the way that she said it didn't come out right and

02:16:28

she just didn't articulate herself properly uh in a way that we could understand because she's a professional

02:16:36

dancer. We're not. But yeah, I mean eventually we we got there. We understood each other. And I mean I was

02:16:45

okay with it. Pick myself up, move on. Like I'm not going to hold a grudge against it. It's not worth my energy and

02:16:51

time. I was there to raise money for a charity that was doing far more important work than me just dancing in

02:16:58

sequins, you know. So, it was a great experience, stressful one, but you know, having

02:17:06

to go and do my job on radio in days, leave to go practice, run, go pick up the kids, get dinner ready, breastfeed a

02:17:14

baby, then go and practice, and then come home at 1:00 in the morning to breastfeed a baby, wake up and drop them

02:17:21

all off at school, and then go back and do it all again, day in day out. Like I I mean I'm I'm a competitive person, so

02:17:27

I'm I'm not just going to put in the standard 15 hours that they say in the

02:17:31

contract to do, you know, I want to make sure that I'm doing it some justice, you

02:17:35

know? I want to make sure that I'm there and that I'm doing them the service that

02:17:40

they need the the charity. So, um yeah, a lot of people that go on that show do put over the amount of work into that

02:17:48

show and they put so much practice into it. Oh, I think you you were on the same

02:17:52

series as um Clint Randall, who I was working with at the time. I saw how hard he trained. It was phenomenal. It's

02:17:58

crazy. Crazy. Yeah. He didn't even win. Manu won that. Manu won. Yeah. Yeah. So,

02:18:02

Manu um William Widawa um gosh, we had um Oh, uh Laura Daniels. All right. Bloody amazing. Yeah, she made the final

02:18:18

two, I think. Okay. Gosh, she she's an amazing person. Amazing phenomenal. Super competitive as well. Yeah. We I

02:18:24

think that's what was so funny about it. Like we were all the biggest jokesters,

02:18:27

but we were all super competitive, but yet we all knew that we were and like everyone was trying to be secretive

02:18:32

about it. We were like, "Bro, we know everyone's competitive. No one wants to

02:18:35

look dumb." Yeah. Was Eric Murray on that one as well? No, he was on the next

02:18:39

one. Right. Right. Yeah. Um I think that's when the [ __ ] started going down

02:18:42

for Manu. You probably didn't know about this at the time, but I believe it was

02:18:45

during Dancing with the Stars um that the police started like talking to him. Oh, I don't I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. I

02:18:53

believe it was quite a I've heard him on some other podcasts. I believe it was

02:18:55

quite a stressful time for him. But you'd never I knew I knew it was a stressful time for him and I can't speak

02:19:00

on his behalf. I just knew that it was a stressful time for him. I mean, the man

02:19:03

was about to have a baby as well. So, his wife was there and you know, heavily pregnant and yeah, I I like he was

02:19:10

putting in so much work to train. So yeah, I I don't know what was happening

02:19:15

around behind the scenes out of that. All I know is we were all trying to train and people getting pissed off. You

02:19:20

took my room. I I was booked in this room. Well, I need to do a lift and I can't do the lift in that room. There's

02:19:25

a low roof. Yeah. Yeah. Everyone's tired and sore. Oh, yeah. No. Yeah. So, it was

02:19:30

good times and I'm again I'm grateful for those opportunities to do those

02:19:34

things and I think each time that I've done something like that a little bit I

02:19:39

learn a little bit more about myself and I get to share a little bit more about myself. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah. And I

02:19:45

hope that's what something people get out of the podcast a bit more about about who you

02:19:50

are. We've been going for 2 hours. So, you did a breakfast radio show this morning. You've done a 2 hour 18

02:19:55

podcast. Are you exhausted now? No. No. I've got to go and pick up the baby,

02:19:59

breastfeed the baby, and um get some dinner ready. Yeah. Yeah. Friday night in the um what's your in the SA house on

02:20:05

the Yeah. Friday night. Yeah. Oh, we haven't we didn't talk about the meat

02:20:07

yet. We might do another podcast. We didn't talk about those meat. There's so

02:20:11

much. We touched on the important parts for now. Friday. Friday night in the um in the household. What does that look

02:20:16

like? Movie night. Yeah. Yeah. Fend for yourself Friday, I call it. It's even got like a catchy radio name.

02:20:22

There there's toasties. You know, my kids are really resourceful. Please believe I've even taught my

02:20:27

four-year-old how to make their own cereal, how to turn on the microwave, you know, these are the times you put it

02:20:32

in for, that's it, you know. So, my kids are really resourceful. They know how to

02:20:36

make their beds, make their own lunches, you know. Teach my kids to be really independent and, you know, do things for

02:20:42

themselves, you know, cuz if we all want to be one place, we all got to move together, you know, and we can't get

02:20:48

stuff done if it's just me doing it. So, we all pitch in, we all work together.

02:20:52

That's what a faro is. We all help each other out and we move together. So if

02:20:55

one person's got one thing going on, then we're all going to support. So my

02:20:59

oldest kids are performing at Polyfest. They've been practicing their little

02:21:02

butts off for the last couple of months every day. So they are getting ready to do Kapahaka and so they've got a dress

02:21:10

rehearsal. So we're all going along to that. And um the my my youngest ones are

02:21:14

so excited. They love it. They love going to cheer on their older siblings and so yeah, we're all excited to go

02:21:20

watch them. So yeah, we'll do that. Movie nights, mattress mod styles, popcorn, all that kind of thing. Yeah,

02:21:27

go watch movies that probably were inappropriate. I like what what was it last Friday? Uh

02:21:33

Water Boy. Oh, Water Boy. Oh, Adam Sandl. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, um probably not something that you play for six and

02:21:38

four year olds. I like wow that didn't age well. Oh, this has been great. [ __ ] Um Oh,

02:21:46

yeah. Even all your all your businesses. You and your husband. How many businesses have you got? Is it six six

02:21:51

businesses? Honestly, every time I have a kid, he opens up a new business. I mean, it's it's just um yeah, we don't

02:21:57

need to get into that, but it's inspiring. It's like here you guys are you're running this crazy huge by 2025

02:22:03

standards chaotic household and you're holding down a full-time radio job in

02:22:07

the morning, which um which I've done, and I know it's stressful. Um you got

02:22:10

all these businesses going on and you're making it work. It's awesome. Yeah.

02:22:13

Well, I mean, like, look, do it while you're young. do while you're young cuz

02:22:18

I'm not going to be doing it when I got a broken hip and I can't put two words

02:22:20

together. My teeth have fallen out, you know? I mean, I I make a joke of it saying, you know, I've got six kids cuz

02:22:26

they're my Kiwi Saver. But, um, you know, at the end of the day, like I want my kids to see that hard

02:22:35

work pays off and if you want something, you know, you you got to work for it. It's not going to be handed to

02:22:42

you. And I think it's just like that whole interpretation of, you know, that

02:22:47

generation of entitlement, you know, it just doesn't come for free. It's not

02:22:51

going to be handed to you, you know. Um, it's one of those things where my husband came from nothing, you know, and

02:22:59

and his parents worked very very hard to give him the life, you know, and for him

02:23:04

to be able to provide that for his children, it means a lot for him and it's not going to go unsted. And so my

02:23:09

children need to understand that. They need to understand that there are kids out there that don't get to live this

02:23:14

life. They don't get to come to promo events like they do with me. My kids work in promo and have since they were

02:23:20

like 10, 12 years old. They've all learned how to crawl and walk around in a radio station. My kids have grown up

02:23:26

in radio. So, how many can say that they've been exposed to that? My kids will go to a promo, they'll stick a

02:23:34

shirt on and they used to be there working the promos with the promo team. You know, my kids are it shows them I

02:23:42

want to show my children that there's more to life than just sitting in this

02:23:46

classroom. And it doesn't just work out for everybody, you know. School is important, but it's not for everyone,

02:23:53

you know, and I need to show them that there are other things in life that they need to keep dreaming, you know, cuz

02:23:59

there are kids out there who can't dream, who won't dream because they can't see past their driveway. And

02:24:05

that's really sad, you know. So, being being able to help my kids dream and show them that there's things

02:24:13

out there, that there's a world beyond Oakland, that there's a world beyond New

02:24:17

Zealand, you know, that that's so important to me, you know, and as much as I get can get help them experience

02:24:23

stuff while I'm in it, why not bring them along with me, you know? And I think that's always been my thing. Like

02:24:30

even when I had the babies, I would only take six I think. Yeah. 6 to 12 weeks off, I'd go back to work.

02:24:40

So, I went back to work 12 weeks after I had my 10-year-old and I'm in studio

02:24:45

breastfeeding while I'm on the microphone. This is my FM, the hottest hip hop in R&B. You know, this while the

02:24:50

baby's on my boob. Nixon's like walking in going, "Holy crap. I'm so sorry,

02:24:54

Kate." And I'm like, "It's okay. Whatever." Like, you know, but you just

02:24:58

get it done. You just get it done. And look, if it it's if it starts to impede

02:25:01

my actual job and my ability to do what I need to do, let me know and I'll I'll

02:25:06

make it work. Because at the end of the day, I've still got to feed a family.

02:25:11

I've still got to keep a roof over our head and everything. And I'm I've been

02:25:16

through enough situations now where I'm not going to leave that burden on one

02:25:21

person. And it's not that it's a burden. And and my husband would and he has he's

02:25:26

gladly worked all his businesses and worked all his 9 toive jobs cuz he still has full-time job as well, you know, and

02:25:33

he still held it down for us while I'm at home looking after the babies, while

02:25:38

I'm in hospital looking after the babies and things like that. And he just does

02:25:41

it without any qual. And that's it, you know. But for me, we are equal in our

02:25:48

relationship. And there's got to be a time, you know, he's human, too. He

02:25:53

feels things, too. You know, there's got to be a time where I can go, "Hey, at

02:25:56

least let me look after you. At least let me be that person for you." You know, otherwise, you know, men just go

02:26:04

through this life of I need to be the rock in the family and I need to, you know, eat, sleep, and [ __ ] work. And you

02:26:12

miss out on so much. You miss out on your children's growth. You miss out on

02:26:16

home life. you have a a a strange relationship in a marriage, you know. So, it's it's always we're always trying

02:26:21

to make it work for us, not anybody else, not for the Hollywood movies or anything like that. We're always trying

02:26:27

to make it work for us, our family dynamics and our relationship. And he's taught me a lot about that, having a

02:26:36

relationship, a real relationship, and what real love is and what that means. And it's it's been awesome. Like I'm I'm

02:26:43

so grateful because had I had not met him, I would have probably got on a plane, left my FM early and moved to

02:26:49

Australia with my family. What a team. What a team. Eh, I feel like we've seen

02:26:55

K. Is there anything else you want to know? Oh, no. No, no. Seriously, I'm busting for a You got You got held up at

02:27:03

gunpoint and you didn't even pee. I'm It'd be terrible if I peed during a

02:27:07

podcast. Um I feel like I feel like we've seen Kina today. Have we seen Kina

02:27:11

today? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh when your young kids get get older, if they happen to stumble across this and they

02:27:16

listen to it, um yeah. What would you like to part with? What message would you like for them to hear?

02:27:23

That's a really good question. that I love them and that everything that me and their dad do that

02:27:34

I do that I've always wanted to show them and I always want to show them that

02:27:40

there's more to life than what they see on TV. There's more to life than outside

02:27:47

the driveway. There's chances for you everywhere. Even though doors get shut in your face,

02:27:55

slammed in your face, they won't even open, you know. And I I think that especially to my

02:28:03

daughters that you should always love yourself first and never stop dreaming. Never

02:28:12

stop thriving just because you have children, you get married, or you have a family or anything like that, you know,

02:28:18

because situations change all the time. Never stop dreaming. Never stop giving up on things that you want in life

02:28:24

because that doesn't define you. And for my sons, find a really good, strong woman

02:28:31

to stand next to you. No, for my sons, you know, I'm I'm I'm lucky that I can say now that they

02:28:40

are beautiful and they're so respectful and they're so loving and caring and

02:28:47

kind. And I would hope that they are still those beautiful young men that I see now as fathers, husbands, partners,

02:28:57

whatever they are in whatever life, you know. I don't expect my kids to be singers. I don't expect them to be radio

02:29:04

announcers. I don't expect them to be anything that I am, you know. And I never never tell my children, you know,

02:29:10

at your age, I had a top 10 single. I was number one and this and that and I got a Juice TV award and I got this, you

02:29:17

know. I never tell my children that. Never. Because that's not an expectation

02:29:21

that I ever want to put on them. I just want them to be happy and to know that I

02:29:27

love them no matter what. No matter who they are, what they are, what they're

02:29:30

doing, everything like that. I love them no matter what. and that everything that

02:29:36

I've always tried to do is to show them that there is more to this world than what they can see in

02:29:44

front of them and that they can do more in this world than what's in front of

02:29:48

them, no matter what age you are. It's so powerful. What a place to end it. Kina McNav Kaye, thanks so much.

02:29:58

You're a great New Zealander. Thank you.

Badges

This episode stands out for the following:

90
Most dramatic
90
Most shocking
85
Most emotional
85
Most heartbreaking

Episode Highlights

A Chilling Encounter
A survivor recounts a near-fatal experience with a violent partner.
“One of us is leaving in a body bag and it won't be him.”
@ 00m 11s
June 01, 2025
Breaking Free from Abuse
A mother reflects on her decision to leave an abusive relationship for her children's sake.
“I’m done. Life just got so much more happier.”
@ 20m 49s
June 01, 2025
A Son's Fear of Inheriting Abuse
A poignant moment as her son questions whether he will become like his father.
“Mom, am I going to hurt people like that?”
@ 34m 40s
June 01, 2025
Facing Fear
A terrifying encounter with a gunman reveals the fight-or-flight instinct.
“I was ready to commit murder in order to save my life.”
@ 47m 47s
June 01, 2025
The Courtroom Revelation
Testifying in court brings unexpected humor amidst a serious situation.
“The whole jury just cracked up laughing.”
@ 56m 13s
June 01, 2025
Discovering Music Talent
A journey from shyness to discovering a passion for music through school auditions.
“I kind of choked on my sandwich and was like, 'Um, sorry, sir.'”
@ 01h 07m 23s
June 01, 2025
A Tough Decision
Faced with missing too much school, she chose music over education.
“I got a job. I’ll be fine.”
@ 01h 21m 56s
June 01, 2025
Celebrity Treasure Island Experience
Her time on the show was filled with unexpected challenges and realizations.
“I started realizing that things were a bit made up.”
@ 01h 33m 53s
June 01, 2025
Mentoring the Next Generation
The speaker discusses their transition to mentoring new radio talent, emphasizing the importance of growth and opportunity.
“I actually like this part of it, mentoring people.”
@ 01h 46m 56s
June 01, 2025
The Evolution of Radio
Radio must evolve to maintain human connection, blending traditional and modern methods.
“We just need to evolve with it and find different ways to make those connections.”
@ 01h 55m 24s
June 01, 2025
Resilience Through Adversity
The speaker reflects on personal growth and resilience through life's challenges.
“I’ve watched my mom be so resilient.”
@ 02h 12m 32s
June 01, 2025
Empowering Her Children
Kina emphasizes the importance of teaching her children about hard work and dreams.
“There’s more to life than what they see on TV.”
@ 02h 27m 44s
June 01, 2025

Episode Quotes

Life is for the living.
K’Lee: From Pop Star to Survivor – Abuse, Trauma & Resilience
Every day is a new day.
K’Lee: From Pop Star to Survivor – Abuse, Trauma & Resilience
Nothing ever happened to me in Compton.
K’Lee: From Pop Star to Survivor – Abuse, Trauma & Resilience
I was a pretty self-determined, independent child.
K’Lee: From Pop Star to Survivor – Abuse, Trauma & Resilience
I was like, "Oh my gosh, this is actual real radio.".
K’Lee: From Pop Star to Survivor – Abuse, Trauma & Resilience
Everything happens for a reason.
K’Lee: From Pop Star to Survivor – Abuse, Trauma & Resilience

Key Moments

Reflecting on Life14:01
Courtroom Drama55:46
Music Discovery1:07:23
Name Change1:17:05
Celebrity Experiences1:25:50
Turning Point1:36:59
Making Room for Growth1:49:30
Parenting Struggles2:00:44

Tension Over Time

Words per Minute Over Time

Vibes Breakdown