Sonia Gray's ultimate test

The beautiful presenter has filmed an episode for TV One’s hit show The DNA Detectives, where well-known Kiwi faces take a DNA test to find out where their ancestors are from, then travel to those places to delve deeper into their roots.

Sonia, who has a Pakeha mum and a Zimbabwean dad, is sworn to secrecy as to the outcome of her adventures- but can say she travelled back to Africa, where she was shocked by what she saw.

“I spent quite a lot of time in South Africa, I used to model here every season,” she tells.

“The last time I was there was nine years ago, and everything felt quite positive, happy – but now, all of Africa feels so run down, there’s so much corruption, people are poor, and they don’t seem to have much hope. It broke my heart a little bit.”

She continues, “Maybe it’s because when I was there last, I was single, with no kids, [she’s married to husband Simon, and has six-year-old twins Inez and Thandie] so the danger aspect was exciting back then. But, now I just wanted to cuddle all the kids and give them money.”