Wellington mayoral candidate Tory Whanau was 20 when she was watching the Lotto results on TV, marking off number after number on her ticket using a pink pen. A university student working two jobs to make ends meet, she was shocked to learn she’d won a life-changing $1.4 million dollars.
But money didn’t mean happiness for the Porirua-born electoral hopeful, who soon started suffering from an eating disorder that saw her restricting food to just one meal a day. Eventually, it was politics that saved her.
“When I bought my Lotto ticket, I’d just applied for a third job because all I cared about was paying off my debt, so I wasn’t a burden to my whānau,” recalls Tory, 39, a former chief of staff for the Green Party.
“Then I started panicking about how I’d do it, so I planned to get a ticket, lined up knowing exactly what numbers to pick and I had a good feeling about it. When I realised that I’d won a lot of money, it was surreal.”
But once word got out about the young woman who’d won the lottery, Tory – who is of Pakakohi descent – began attracting negative attention from men, as well as people asking for money. She instantly became popular, which made her feel used.
“It was such a wonderful privilege because it allowed me to take a few months off uni, pay off my parents’ bills and mortgage, then go back to studying without having to worry about what job I had,” she says.
“However, I developed this idea that to have purpose, I had to care about the way I looked. I thought I had to be super-skinny and beautiful. I didn’t have a strong passion for anything yet.”
Having entered a beauty pageant, Tory ate as few calories as possible in her daily meal – usually just chicken, broccoli and rice – and exercised twice a day, six days a week.
“That was my pattern for a good five to six years, until I found body sculpting in my late twenties, which was just another way I could control my eating and work out to maintain a particular body,” she recalls. “I was a very lean size eight and, sure, I looked good, but I was miserable. I didn’t have many friends and wasn’t pleasant to be around.”
“I thought I had to be super-skinny.”
A couple of years after her win, Tory met her husband Jeremy Jones, 41. Laughing, she remembers, “After all the guys trying to use me for money, I decided I needed a nice man with a nerdy career who didn’t go partying lots. Then two weeks later, Jeremy and I met online. He was a scientist who didn’t know who I was and it was perfect.”
With a corporate job in finance, life was stable and comfortable for Tory, but three years into her marriage, she realised she was unhappy both at home and at work.
“Things were exactly as they should’ve looked on paper, but I didn’t have any real purpose,” she confesses. “I wasn’t happy within myself, my marriage didn’t feel right and it was like I’d created a life based on expectations.
“I thought I’d change my career and so, at 33, I got into politics as the Green Party head of digital. That set off a chain reaction of actions and heavily politicised me. It was like this fire in my belly.”
After 13 years together, Tory agreed to go separate ways with Jeremy, who is still one of her best friends, choosing politics over wanting to start a family.
“We just wanted different things out of life,” explains Tory, who is a mum to one-year-old Staffy pup Teddy. “I became incredibly passionate about issues regarding the environment and vulnerable people. It sparked something in me and I see there are so many more important things in the world than me caring what I look like.”
Keeping fit with Staffy pup Teddy.
Tory’s now back enjoying the food she loves and has put on a healthy 15kg since ending her diets. She has also bought a whole new wardrobe ahead of her campaign for the October election, which she’s able to focus on full-time as she saved most of her Lotto winnings.
“I only recently accepted my body and it was a mind-blowing realisation that I’m gorgeous as I am!” she enthuses. “It’s really hard to do that and it took me almost 15 years, but it’s completely possible.”
Tory’s all fired up for the election.
As well as advocating for safe environments for women, Tory hopes to revive Wellington by building 20,000 new homes, improving public transport, planting one million trees, and ensuring the council invests in mental health and addiction services.
“The night I launched my election campaign was probably the best day of my life,” she beams. “Seeing how my words were getting people really riled up was electric. I don’t ever want to end up in that stale, unhappy life again. I’m so lucky to have found my calling.”
