The latest celebrity to hit the campaign trail once ran for National, and has a long history of making controversial comments.

This just in from the celebrity-endorsement election: broadcaster Paul Henry is running for the Act Party. Yes, this really is the timeline we’re all currently existing in. And yes, Henry wants to be a minister.

The announcement was made this morning, with Henry appearing alongside Act Party leader David Seymour on a rooftop in Auckland. Henry told reporters his candidacy was only confirmed by the Act Party board on Monday night, and he had just signed the necessary documentation that morning. He was running as a list-only candidate, and Seymour said he expected Henry to be given “an electable and respectable position”.

Henry only resigned from his position on the TVNZ board this morning, telling reporters he had phoned TVNZ’s chairman “about 20 minutes ago”. Seymour told reporters he had given media and communications minister Paul Goldsmith, who appointed Henry to the position in mid 2025, a heads up about the candidacy before the press conference. Henry had hosted TV3’s The Traitors NZ for two seasons, but walked away from the show at the end of 2025. He also hosted TVNZ’s four-part version of The Chase last year.

His storied (and controversial) career in media has taken him through Radio Live, TVNZ’s Breakfast and MediaWorks – more on that below – but this isn’t Henry’s first election rodeo. He stood for National in Wairarapa in 1999, and lost to Labour’s Georgina Beyer by 3,000 votes in a traditionally right-leaning seat. In 2017 Henry claimed he’d been shoulder-tapped to stand in that year’s election but wouldn’t say by what party. Both National and Act denied they had made any approach to him.

Henry said his National Party support waned “probably after John Key… But during Covid, that’s when the nasty rubber started hitting the road.” He said he was now “enormously disappointed with National”, criticising the governing centre-right party for being “a little bit populist”. However, electing a Labour government “would be a disaster”, Henry claimed.

After the announcement, Key – who was often interviewed by Henry during his tenure as PM – told the Herald that Act had made a “great selection” and Henry would make a “fantastic MP”. 

Henry publicly switched political allegiances in 2024, after speaking at an Act Party rally. In hindsight, he explained that that was the moment he considered running “without really realising it”. The reason supporting Act was so important, Henry said, was because “someone needs to hold National to the oven”.

But why does Henry want to be a parliamentarian? The 65-year-old said recent reflections on the lives of the 10 grandchildren he and his wife Diane Foreman share led him to wonder “what is the chance that as you grow a little older, you will have the same opportunities that your grandfather had when he was growing up in paradise?” 

He criticised Labour, alongside NZ First and the Greens, for leaving the country “up to its eyeballs in debt”. Government spending stuck out as a sore spot for Henry, who told reporters New Zealand would need to cough up around $24.5m a day to pay interest on debt left by the last Labour government. Policies promoted by NZ First this election were only “sugar hits”, Henry argued.

“Since 2023, things have been nudged in the right direction, but nowhere near hard or fast enough,” Henry said. “Act is the only party confronting the fundamental imbalance at the heart of New Zealand’s decline: our economy is too small and our bureaucracy is too big.”

Among other things, Henry said he hoped to build a multibillion-dollar “world-class cancer hospital” in Auckland. He proposed that “you could easily get a bunch of wealthy New Zealanders to stump up $10bn, easily”. When asked about further details, he explained “I’m a big picture man” and joked about hiring 50 people to iron out the details. The idea seemed to catch Seymour by surprise.

Based on current polling, which has seen Act plateau to around 6-8%, Henry would need a generous list ranking to secure a spot in parliament. The party gained 8.67% in the 2023 election, giving it 11 MPs, two of those via electorates. If its party vote in November is around current polling levels, Act will likely return to parliament with 10 MPs. Mark Cameron and Brooke van Velden are not seeking re-election, but Henry will still likely need to leapfrog a sitting MP in the list ranking to secure a seat in parliament.

Henry said he wanted to be a minister, but denied he would be chasing the media and communications portfolio. But could he make make a coalition work? Asked about Act’s current smaller governing partner, he grinned, “I used to host Traitors, so I know more about Winston and NZ First than anybody else.”

Paul Henry’s biggest WTF moments

•  In March 2009, as co-host of TVNZ’s Breakfast, Henry read an offensive viewer comment sent in about a Greenpeace worker who had just appeared on the show. As co-host Ali Mau pleaded with him to stop, Henry read out multiple messages criticising the woman’s facial hair. He backed it up with his own observations: “I noticed as well, I thought, that is a moustache on a lady! It was a moustache on a lady! I just noticed it, and people can say what they see, it’s just television isn’t it?” TVNZ upheld multiple complaints about the incident.
• In August 2009, he claimed on air that homosexuality was “unnatural”, and in December 2009, described Britain’s Got Talent contestant Susan Boyle as “retarded”. TVNZ upheld complaints about the latter but the Broadcasting Standards Authority deemed the former was OK, as Henry’s “comments were not sufficiently vitriolic” to reach the threshold required.
  
• In October 2010, Henry erupted into a fit of laughter, live on air, over the name of Indian politician Sheila Dikshit. “And it’s so appropriate because she is Indian,” he said. “So she’d be dick-in-shit, walking along the street.” His on-screen colleagues repeatedly pointed out he was incorrectly pronouncing the name, which is said “Dixit”. The episode provoked widespread outrage, including from the Indian government. TVNZ was later fined $3,000 by the Broadcasting Standards Authority for airing the comments.
• Just four days after the Dikshit remarks, while interviewing John Key, Henry asked the prime minister if then governor general Anand Satyanand was “even a New Zealander”. A visibly taken aback Key replied that Satyanand, who was born and raised in Auckland, was. Henry then said, “Are you going to choose a New Zealander who looks and sounds like a New Zealander this time?” Key attempted to laugh the comments off, but later described them as “plain wrong”, describing Henry as a “shock jock”. While both Henry and TVNZ initially defended the comments, as the furore deepened, Henry apologised to Satyanand and was suspended by TVNZ. He resigned a few days later. Henry later claimed he had been “exploited” by TVNZ.