Paddy Gower’s ‘sliding door moment’ – where a quick decision alters our path – happened live on television when he was a guest presenter on now-defunct current-affairs show The Project.
The topic that week was addiction. His friend and anchor Jesse Mulligan made a throwaway comment, asking if Paddy wanted to say anything about why he’d abruptly left the Press Gallery after years of holding politicians to account.
Paddy answered that he started to hate the job and was a workaholic. But it wasn’t the whole truth. The job had come at a cost – a full-on breakdown, serious alcohol addiction and bouts of depression.
However, that seemingly inconsequential question on camera led to Paddy realising it was okay to publicly share his “scars”.
“There might have been rumours that I wasn’t that well, or people could see I was quite manic, but no one actually knew why I’d left the job,” tells the affable 47-year-old.
“Jesse sensed something was there and probably thought I was going to say something a little more humorous. Afterwards, people contacted me saying they’d been through the same sort of burnout.
“As soon as they said thanks for sharing, it was an amazing feeling,” he tells. “So I thought I’d tell my whole story in a book – it’s kind of a timeline about where I became ‘a bit of a dick’ to when I became less of one.”
Funny and brutally honest, This is the F#$%ing News details Paddy’s youth in New Plymouth – where he learned to defend himself from cruel bullying about his looks – and splices in yarns from becoming a terrified rookie journo to a news icon.
Should anyone in politics or media be worried?
“Well, John Key hasn’t read it… Winston Peters hasn’t read it, so there might be some slightly nervous people around!” he laughs.
“But I don’t think anybody who’s crossed swords with me needs to be nervous. I’ve managed to resist settling any scores. There was some ego-related tension back in the day between myself and Duncan Garner – there’s not now. I love and respect him.”
Embarrassing anecdotes, where alcohol was the bedrock of his problems, also feature.
Once, after the 2017 election, when Winston Peters had the country on tenterhooks before announcing he’d chosen to align with Labour, Paddy – then TV3’s political editor – had started drinking in the office.
After going to a bar where the Green MPs were celebrating being back in office, he got a tip that Winston was drinking down the road at a private party.
“Well, I had to go and check it out, didn’t I?,” he says. “It was like a scene out of The Sopranos. Peters and his crew were in the corner hunched around a table smoking cigars. He waved me over, and I was given a whiskey and a cigar.”
That’s the last thing Paddy remembers – he got so drunk, he blacked out.
Paddy writes, “I don’t know how I got home, but I woke up, startled to the sound of banging on the bedroom window at 2pm by my camera operator. I still had my suit and tie on, and my shoes. In the middle of a huge political story, the political editor had gone missing and I had missed my slot on The AM Show. You’d think that was my turning point for seeking help, but it really wasn’t.”
Paddy tells the Weekly he’s been 1000 days sober and says there was no way he could have written this book if he was still drinking.
Losing his sight temporarily also led to dark times, when he needed emergency surgery after his retina detached three times. At times, he thought his “Paddy luck” had run out and he was going to become blind in one eye.
“All the operations I’ve had caused cataracts,” he explains. “So they were removed this year and I had two new lenses inserted. I can now see better than I have done for years.”
He adds that there’s 180,000 New Zealanders with low vision, so it was really important to him to produce an audio book too, which took him 20 hours.
“I want to point out that it’s not been the hardest life,” he says. “It’s not the most amazing comeback and I haven’t had a life-changing accident that’s left me disabled – it’s really not that kind of story.
“Maybe some of the things I’ve gone through will resonate with people who have had similar experiences, who carry baggage around with them in their adult life that they really don’t need to be carrying any more.”
Quick fire questions
How has bullying about your looks affected you?
It has left its scars. The bullying I went through wasn’t as profound as what a lot people experience. But to say “I felt that I was ugly” is hard for me to even say today, which shows how deeply it affected me.
Your book tells an amusing tale about forgetting your passport while covering a PM’s tour to Iraq. Have you been able to live that down?
I know for a fact that the Army and Air Force have discussed it a lot. Even coming back from doing my documentary in Antarctica – where you don’t need a passport to travel – there was an NZ Air Force plane that picked us up and as I approached it, some of the defence force guys were like, “Hey, have you got your passport?!”
If you hadn’t made the documentary Patrick Gower: On Booze, would you have quit drinking?
No, if people hadn’t pushed me into that corner I probably wouldn’t have. I’m so much calmer at dealing with things now and I sleep so well.
What’s next for Paddy version 3.0?
Oh, I think I’m up to version 7.2! In November and December, I’m visiting 14 centres from Stewart Island to Waitangi Treaty Grounds, doing a book tour. It’ll be a cross between stand-up comedy, journalism and motivational speaking, where I’ll talk to Kiwis about their local issues. And I’ve launched a new online show focusing on positive news stories of Kiwis teaching us lessons about life.
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