spinofflive
Image by Toby Morris
Image by Toby Morris

Pop CultureApril 20, 2022

The truth about Mike Puru and the cursed McChicken

Image by Toby Morris
Image by Toby Morris

In 2019, one throwaway news story about Mike Puru and a bad chicken burger captured our attention. Today, we finally uncover the truth.  

There’s a particular toilet near the Newshub studio that gives Mike Puru flashbacks to one of the darkest broadcasts of his career. He remembers writhing around on the floor of said toilet, suit jacket crumpled in the corner, body drenched in sweat. He remembers alternating between uncontrollable vomiting and crapping. He remembers the panic of having mere minutes before he had to present the weather, live on television. 

“I was ready to call an ambulance, that’s how sick I was,” he says. “I thought I was going to die.”


Follow The Real Pod on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favourite podcast provider.


It was the summer of 2019, in the liminal space between Christmas and New Year, and Puru was juggling weather shifts on Newshub with a daily talkback slot on RadioLIVE. He may not have died in the toilet cubicle that day, but he did, in his own words, “look awful” for the three minutes that he was on screen. “I was very clammy, a little bit breathless,” he says. “I think that point I just wanted to get it out, because you can imagine what it’s like standing there on live TV thinking ‘don’t fart’.” 

Once he recovered from the bout of food poisoning, the saga soon became fodder for his radio show. “I had to fill some time waiting for a caller and I talked about what had happened,” he recalls. “That’s what they say at broadcasting school – just draw on your life experiences – so I thought well that was a life experience, so I started talking about it and lo and behold it ended up on a website and then became news.” 

Mike Puru shares ‘gross’ McDonald’s holiday horror story’ was published on Newshub on January 7, 2019. The article details the genesis of the food poisoning, describing a “disastrous McChicken experience” that led to the broadcaster losing four kilograms. It recounts how, after complaining about the long wait times at McDonald’s on New Year’s Day, a friend of Puru’s gifted him an unwanted burger which he immediately put in his backpack and forgot about on “a very hot day.” He later reheated it, and ​​paid the price for the decision from “both ends”. 

In a cruel twist of algorithmic fate, the story is followed with this ad: 

This story immediately captured the attention of The Real Pod, The Spinoff’s weekly reality television podcast. It raised a lot of questions: Who has a spare burger? Why did Puru put it in his backpack? Why did an adult man think it would then be OK to eat? To commemorate the three year, three month and 13 day anniversary of the story breaking, Puru joined us in The Real Pod studio this week to finally reveal the truth. 

The first bombshell of many was that the offending burger was not, in fact, a McChicken as reported. “I think it was from either a Burger Fuel or a Burger Wisconsin,” he said. “But honestly, there’s nothing wrong with those burger places at all because it is entirely my fault.” Puru estimated he had “rocked around” with the mid-range chicken burger in his backpack for “probably a day or two” before consumption. 

“You can imagine my surprise when I was hungry and I opened my backpack and there was a chicken burger,” he recalled. “I thought ‘if I just microwave the hell out of it, it will be fine’.”

Puru in happier times at Newshub

As we now know, it was not fine. “I ate it and then I paid the price,” Puru lamented, referring to his “risky three minutes of broadcasting” while doing the weather. He admitted his return to chicken has been slow, given the psychological scarring of the saga. “I had little nibbles over those few days afterwards but it didn’t agree with me and I was really paranoid that I was going to be off chicken for the rest of my life,” said the certified chicken-head. 

Years on, Puru remains vigilant when it comes to chicken. “I always double-check the time frame and how meat is stored,” he said. “If it’s been in the fridge for longer than a day or two, that’s it. I won’t touch it. But I still love chicken to this day… I am chicken everything.” He recently became concerned after storing some chicken in the lower compartment of his fridge that “didn’t smell quite right” on removal. 

Not only did Puru throw the dodgy chicken out, but he bought a replacement fridge – he was covering the weather on Newshub for the Easter break, and didn’t want any slip-ups. “In broadcasting, sometimes if you are away and someone fills in, you know, changes can happen,” he explained. “I never let my guard down.”


Follow The Real Pod on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favourite podcast provider.

Keep going!
Disciple Pati (Image: FIRST / Tina Tiller)
Disciple Pati (Image: FIRST / Tina Tiller)

Pop CultureApril 20, 2022

Why Disciple Pati’s family unfollowed her on social media

Disciple Pati (Image: FIRST / Tina Tiller)
Disciple Pati (Image: FIRST / Tina Tiller)

The musician tells FIRST about going viral, the first place she’d go in a time machine and more.

First time you performed in public

“I used to do Britney Spears routines. We lived in Wellington and there’s this park that has a stage – I forget what it’s called, but my dad used to take me there and my mum would carry three deodorants in her bag because she’s sweaty girl. And so I used to take her deodorant out of her bag and then go on the stage and be like, ‘Hit me baby one more time’ in front of all these people. And my mum’s like, ‘Oh my God, I promise we take her to church.’ I sang at church too, praise and worship. I did. So my name Disciple Pati was at one stage unironic because when I was younger I was a religious girl. Wanted to be a true disciple.”

First nickname

“My first nickname was actually Sa. So my full name is Sapati, which means Sunday, Sabbath, holy day… So my parents were trying to put me down a path. Obviously it didn’t work. And my uncle Kevin called me Sa. And then everybody else started calling me Pati and in Samoan pati also means clap, so people would be like, ‘Ha, pati pati’. And I’m like… It’s not that funny when you hear it 20 different times a day.”

First overseas trip

“I’d done lots of overseas trips with my family but my first ever overseas trip with my bestest friend in the whole entire world we went to Thailand – the most embarrassing trip of my life. 

So [before we went] I was researching what food I was going to eat, and they have this crab, it’s called the horseshoe crab, and so I was like, OK, I’m going to eat this crab. It’s a salad they make. On our last day there we walk past this restaurant that has an aquarium in it and has these creepy little horseshoe crabs. So I get inside and order the crab and then the crab salad comes and then I eat it. I’m like, this is so yum. I eat the whole thing. And then we get up to go and my stomach gets upset. And I’m like, oh no, here we go. I have to go back to the hotel. I try to pua’i, which means vomit, I try to throw it up and nothing comes out. And so I’m sitting on the bed, I’m like, oh my gosh, I’m going to die. I’m going to die. And then I start getting little hives on my skin, little itchy bites. So we got to the pharmacy and [the pharmacist] is like, you’re having an allergic reaction. I’ve never had an allergic reaction like that before, so we get all the medication.

My face blows up. It’s full on – my eyes are swollen, my cheeks are swollen, my body’s red everywhere – but [my friend] wants to get her souvenirs for her family. So we have to walk along the bloody road and she’s looking at these keychains and I’m just like dying in the corner. [After a while] it starts to calm down, so I’m like, OK, I feel a lot better now. She’s like, see, I told you you’re being dramatic. And then in the corner of my eye, I see a little scorpion and I’m like, but I can’t leave Thailand without having eaten a scorpion. So, I go eat the scorpion with my full blown face and then we get tattoos. That’s my first trip to Thailand and I’m surprised I’m still alive.”

First time you went viral

“The first time I went viral was on Twitter and it was for shaking my two butt cheeks together really, really well. And then it just went everywhere. I got like a hundred thousand views in 24 hours. I was like, well I know I got a nice butt, but I didn’t know it was that good until all my family started unfollowing me.”

First place you’d go in a time machine

“I’d go to Samoa before the missionaries got there. Just to see what my ancestors are doing. Like ‘Hey gramps, what you up to?’ He’s like, ‘Oh you’re my descendant?’ I’ll be like ‘Yeah’. He’s like, ‘[Hmm…]’ Anyways…”

Interview edited for length and clarity.

This episode of FIRST was made with support from NZ On Air.

But wait there's more!